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AN ANTI-INFLAMMATORY drug lauded by US President Donald Trump as a potential treatment for Covid-19 does not help clear the virus and may make the outcome for patients worse, according to new research.
A randomised clinical trial from China showed that hospitalised patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 who received hydroxychloroquine did not recover from the virus quicker than those receiving standard care, and adverse effects were higher in those who received hydroxychloroquine.
The research has been published in the British Medical Journal, as has separate research from France that shows the drug does not significantly reduce admission to intensive care or death in patients hospitalised with pneumonia due to Covid-19.
Hydroxychloroquine can reduce inflammation, pain and swelling, and is widely used to treat rheumatic diseases. It is also an anti-malarial drug.
Laboratory tests previously showed some promising results, but accumulating trial and observational evidence has called into question whether the drug has any meaningful clinical benefits for patients with the virus.
Hydroxychloroquine has been promoted by Trump – despite the opposing view of Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious disease expert – and is included in Chinese guidelines on how best to manage the virus.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorisation to allow the drug be provided to certain patients in hospital. However, the organisation has since cautioned against the drug’s use outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial due to the risk of heart rhythm problems.
TheJournal.ie previously debunked a widely shared social media post that claimed hydroxychloroquine and ‘zpac’, otherwise known as the antibiotic azithromycin, would help a patient to full recovery from the virus within 12 hours.
Adverse effects
In the Chinese study, researchers assessed the effectiveness and safety of hydroxychloroquine compared with standard care in 150 adults hospitalised with Covid-19.
Patients were randomly split into two groups – almost half of them received hydroxychloroquine in addition to standard care, and the others received standard care.
Four weeks into the trial, tests revealed similar rates of Covid-19 in the two groups but adverse effects were more common in those who received hydroxychloroquine.
There were no major differences between the two groups in terms of symptoms improving or the speed at which this happened.
Adverse effects were recorded in seven of the 80 patients (9%) who did not receive hydroxychloroquine and in 21 of the 70 patients (30%) who were given the drug.
In one study, adverse effects were more common in patients who received hydroxychloroquine. in the hydroxychloroquine recipients was diarrhoea, which was reported in seven of the 70 (10%) patients. Two hydroxychloroquine recipients reported serious adverse effects due to progression of the virus and respiratory infection.
A patient with upper respiratory infection was discharged from hospital after finishing the 14 days of treatment with hydroxychloroquine. They developed a dry throat and pain in their pharynx (the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity) and had to be readmitted to hospital.
The BMJ notes that while further work is needed to confirm these results, the authors say their findings do not support the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with mild to moderate Covid-19.
In the French study, researchers assessed the effectiveness and safety of hydroxychloroquine compared with standard care in adults admitted to hospital with pneumonia due to Covid-19 who needed oxygen.
Of 181 patients, 84 received hydroxychloroquine within 48 hours of admission and 97 did not.
Researchers found no meaningful differences between the groups in relation to transfer to intensive care, death within seven days, or developing acute respiratory distress syndrome within 10 days.
The researchers have said that caution is needed in the interpretation of their results, but their findings do not support the use of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with pneumonia related to Covid-19.
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Rabbit Ebola. Sounds like an awful death for an animal.
No danger to humans. What about dogs, cats and other wild animals that prey on rabbits?
@John O’Connor: they are all safe for m it but can carry it on their fur or cloths to other rabbits.
Coursing clubs are shamefully and unbelievably, lobbying for the re-issuing of the license taht would enable them to resume capturing hares with nets for use in coursing.
The so-called Coursing Support Group Kerry is demanding that the license be restored, claiming that coursing clubs won’t do any harm if they are permitted to capture hares, as “they’d never course a sick or diseased hare”. Kerry Radio carried the following report today on this:
And backwoods politicians are also pressing for a resumption of nationwide hare capture and live coursing, with an emergency motion on the subject tabled at a meeting of Kerry County Council!
I hope the Minister and the NPWS will reject the pseudo-scientific nonsense emanating from the pro hare coursing lobby and its political apologists.
Coursing practices would greatly increase the risk of the disease spreading: Coursing clubs use nets to catch the animals. They handle them casually and roughly, place them in little boxes (confinement that is totally unnatural and terrifying to them), transport them in vans or car boots to various locations and then pack them into compounds or paddocks where these normally solitary creatures find themselves in a cramped and unnatural environment: conditions ideal for the spreading of the disease.
Coursing clubs have been asserting in recent weeks that if they are permitted to resume capturing hares with nets for their fixtures they will vaccinate the hares they capture against the disease. Some politicians have backed them in this desperate ploy.
What they fail to mention, however, is that 1) the vaccine, called ‘Eravac’, which is licensed in Europe, is not available in Ireland and 2) more importantly, it cannot be applied to hares…just rabbits.
Coursing clubs are NOT conservationists, as they’d like us to believe. They are by definition people who capture hares for the express purpose of setting dogs on them for “sport.”
The ban on hare netting must remain. An entire species should be put at risk just to accommodate people who get their kicks from watching an animal running its life.
@John Fitzgerald: hi john I don’t hear of or see you standing against the travellers whom hunt with lurchers sometimes four and five at a time. The hare has no chance. I’m constantly ringing the Gardaí running them out of land beside me. The Gardaí can do nothing. Just like you.
They kill whatever moves in the land then throw it in a ditch. It’s a very common practice of theirs and what worse it’s all year round.
@John Fitzgerald: Well John, its a pity that the npws and the journal are full of antis like yourself.
Coursing will be back this year, if left to the coursing clubs the hare will multiply and strengthen, also strong talk about the antis planting an infected rabbit, nothing would surprise me with this crowd.
@francis walsh: hilarious that you use “antis” as if it’s a bad thing to be against wild hares being trapped and hoarded together before having to run for their lives just for your bloodthirsty entertainment.
@Stephen:
I’m opposed to all forms of so-called recreational hunting/coursing of hares, whether the ones that are banned or those permitted by law. The netting ban should remain, but of course the Gardai should pursue illegal coursers/hunters and prosecute them. Landowners are getting hell from those gangs. It is important, however, not to blame any one section of society for such activities. The vast majority of travelers are law-abiding people who abhor any form of animal cruelty.
@francis walsh:
“Antis” are people opposed to animal cruelty such as hare coursing…meaning the overwhelming majority of the Irish people. Your allegation re the planting of an infected rabbit is beyond ridiculous and shows how desperate your side has become in recent weeks.
@francis walsh: and pigs will fly ! , how is it that inspite of all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary you can still put these selfish, ignorant views out on social media.
Coursing clubs and those who support them need to wake upto the horrific abuse they inflict on a gentle creature like the Irish hare.
One of the benefits of “breeding like rabbits” is that those rabbits who are fortunate enough to have the right genetic makeup to withstand this virus can rapidly repopulate and make for lost numbers.
Its only a matter of time before some such disease starts to affect humans as well after all there are a lot of similarities between today’s human behaviour and rabbits.
Will the cruel hare coursing stop? Illegal hare coursing will still continue as part of their backward “culture”
@Niall O’Neill: not backward Néill, just great.
Only 2 hares found and the npws which is full of animal anti groups have suspended greyhound coursing, another kick in the teeth to rural Ireland, the government have passed the can and the antis win again.
@francis walsh: “The disease has been found in 12 animals but the actual number of infected rabbits and hares could be far higher as samples in a number of these cases were taken from one animal drawn from a larger group of dead animals…The disease can be transmitted directly through fluids such as saliva and urine or indirectly through clothes, animals or insects..”. You think satisfying your bloodlust is more important than trying to stop the spread of this deadly virus in the hare population?
@francis walsh: “The disease has been found in 12 animals but the actual number of infected rabbits and hares could be far higher as samples in a number of these cases were taken from one animal drawn from a larger group of dead animals…The disease can be transmitted directly through fluids such as saliva and urine or indirectly through clothes, animals or insects..”. You think satisfying your bloodlust is more important than trying to stop the spread of this deadly virus in the hare population?
@francis walsh:
Can’t take chances. Hare coursing already stands condemned and utterly discredited on animal welfare grounds (the hares are mauled and have their bones broken, and if they survive they are passed on to other clubs for re-coursing) but now this horrible “sport” poses a clear existential threat to the the Irish Hare as a species.
@francis walsh:
No, it’s a pro-rural Ireland move to suspend hare netting by gangs of coursers…the disappearance of our iconic Irish Hare from the countryside would be severe blow to rural Ireland and to our wonderful wildlife heritage that is under pressure on many fronts.
@John Fitzgerald: you’re ignorance is consistent John, you really don’t have an idea of what you are talking about.
@francis walsh: what has John said that’s incorrect?
@francis walsh:
Oh but I do know “Francis”…this time the science is against you. It’s not an animal protection group that suspended the hare netting license. A Government department acted in response to a crisis, on the best advice from a team of experts. Any resumption of hare netting by gangs across the country would place the entire species at risk. Imagine, at this time…gangs of whiskey-slugging gougers handling hares, passing them around, shoving into little boxes for transportation around the country…and then dozens of hares at a time bunched into paddocks where they await contrived chases. Add to that the widespread trafficking of hares between clubs (a hare can fetch up to a hundred euro) and you have a recipe for ecological disaster. Coursing clubs do NOT capture hares to vaccinate them or somehow “care” for them. They capture them for the sole and express purpose of setting dogs on them. Fact. So should the Irish Hare have to face possible wipe-out just to appease these gangs of predators?
@John Fitzgerald: you’re a langer.
Wasn’t there cases of a similar infection in Deer in the US over the last couple of years.
Nature’s way is survival of the fittest
@Dave Walsh: Or man’s way of controlling the amount of rabbets
@Alan Scott: that’s what guns are for…
Josephine they were probably doing too much Swinging
Thankfully there is a vaccine out for it. I had my bunny vacinated 2 weeks ago. Kept him out of the garden till then. On a side note. Anyone from Cork know how they rabbits on the Dunnkettle roundabout are doing?
@Edmund Murphy: the vaccine works for rabbits but not hares.
@EillieEs: yep I read your comment on that earlier. Glad it at least works on Rabbits.
@Edmund Murphy: absolutely, just a shame it doesn’t work for hares too
Who framed Roger Rabbit?
There’s a an aids like virus wiping out cats as well…they go off food and waste away in a week..very distressing… Vaccinate…
Elmer Fudd is on the case . We’re hunting wabbits
Is that the mix a my toties ?
Methinks China needs to sharpen up their disease controls, given the widespread pig, poultry, & now the furry wildlife virus outbreaks .
For a country with unlimited state controls, gigantic food production needs, surely they should get their livestock health under strict control.
We don’t need these almost seasonal plagues to spread everywhere.
Methinks China needs to sharpen up their disease controls, given the widespread pig, poultry, & now the furry wildlife. For a country with unlimited state controls, gigantic food production needs, surely they should get their livestock health under strict control.
We don’t need these almost seasonal plagues to spread everywhere.
have your say