Drug touted by US president has no benefit, warn experts

A committee of experts called by US government’s top agency on infectious diseases on Tuesday advised against the use of a combination of an antimalarial drug and an antibiotic that US President Donald Trump has been touting as a potential “game-changer” in the hunt for a treatment for COVID-19.

The experts’ committee said in guidelines for medication that except for the goals of clinical trials, it “recommends against” the use of the antimalarial drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) plus Azithromycin, an antibiotic, “due to the potential for toxicities”.

Although the US body left open the use of HCQ or another version of it, chloroquine, saying there is inadequate data to recommend for or against their use. The committee warned clinicians that if they did administer HCQ or chloroquine, they should “monitor the patient for unfavourable effect”.

Also, an examination published on Tuesday on the use of HCQ to treat coronavirus patients in US Veteran Affairs hospitals showed no advantages and caused more deaths. Researchers and experts have said the study was not enough, and more data is required.

The panel of experts that published the guidelines was collected by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a federal agency managed by Anthony Fauci, a member of Trump’s White House task force on the outbreak.