The National Institutes of Health or the NIHS ends hydroxychloroquine clinical trials after showing zero results for Covid-19 patients.
The clinical trial of the anti-malaria drug was halted after discovering that it cannot treat Covid-19.
The moves comes after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cancelled the emergency use of hydroxychloroquine on Monday and the World Health Organization removed the drug from its global study on Wednesday.
“A data and safety monitoring board met late Friday and determined that while there was no harm, the study drug was very unlikely to be beneficial to hospitalized patients with COVID-19,” the NIH said in a statement on Saturday.
The FDA found that the drug is “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19” and mentioned its side effects including serious heart rhythm problems.
Hydroxychloroquine is known for treating malaria and rheumatoid conditions like arthritis. The drug became a hype earlier in the year after some studies suggested that Covid-19 patients could benefit from taking it.
Not effective
However, bigger studies revealed that the drug was not effective and led to heart issues in some patients. Meanwhile, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine also showed that hydroxychloroquine did not work any better than a placebo in healing coronavirus infections.
President Donald Trump still promoted the drug’s potential to fight the virus and finished a two week regimen last month. White House physician Dr. Sean Conley noted that after exploring evidence for and against hydroxychloroquine with the president, they stressed that “the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
There are no treatment yet for the coronavirus that was approved by FDA. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus outbreak has infected over 8.6 million people worldwide and led to the deaths of at least 460,594.
Deaths in coronavirus patients
In May, a study published in The Lancet revealed that hydroxychloroquine is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients.
Findings showed that Covid-19 patients that were given hydroxychloroquine are more likely to experience irregular heart rhythms. The researchers evaluated more than 96,000 patients from 671 hospitals across six continents.
US President Donald Trump defends taking hydroxychloroquine to repel coronavirus amidst warnings from public health officials.
Health experts gave a warning that it may be unsafe for people to take unproven drug hydroxychloroquine.
During a White House briefing, Trump said he began taking the malaria and lupus medication hydroxychloroquine recently. He suggested that taking this drug can ward off coronavirus.
“I’m taking it for about a week and a half now and I’m still here, I’m still here,” he said.
“You’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers before you catch it, the frontline workers, many, many are taking it,” he told reporters. “I happen to be taking it.”
However, there was no study at the time that can prove hydroxychloroquine can eliminate coronavirus.
The new study published in The Lancet was written through the evaluation of patients with COVID-19 between Dec. 20 and April 14 by Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and other institutions.
