SOURCE: The Sun UK
DOCTORS in the US have claimed that a now controversial malaria drug does help patients diagnosed with the coronavirus.
They say medics should start giving the drug to patients after 91.7 per cent showed improvements on the drug.
A report published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) stated patients who were given hydroxychloroquine spent less time in the hospital than those given other forms of medication such as antiviral drug Avigan.
More than 2,300 patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine as part of the test and medics have now advised that doctors should not wait to use the medication on coronavirus patients after 91.7 per cent of patients finished the treatment plan with a “good outcome”.
This is while 4.4 per cent of patients tested had a poor virological outcome, and 4.3 per cent had a poor clinical outcome.
Of the 4.3 per cent of patients with a poor clinical outcome, ten were transferred to intensive care units, five patients died and 31 required ten or more days of hospital treatment.
The report stated: “Both poor clinical and virological outcomes were associated with patients taking selective beta-blocking agents.”
The new data also found that patients who had been treated with the drug spent less time on wards.
Those treated with the malaria drug spent three times less on wards than those treated with other medications.
Doctors at the AAPS also voiced their findings in a letter to the governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey.
Governor Ducey had previously penned an executive order forbidding prophylactic use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine unless the drugs had been peer-reviewed and evidence became available.
The group has therefore asked that the original order now be rescinded in light of the new data.
It claimed that waiting for larger clinical trials during a pandemic was a “Bayesian approach to the assessment of diagnostic and therapeutic probabilities”.
It also claimed that it would save lives and money.
So far the US has claimed there has been over 58,000 deaths from the virus with over one million cases. In the UK there has been over 21,000 deaths and over 161,000 cases, with the toll thought to actually be much higher as Public Health England can only report deaths in hospitals.
The FDA has given authorisation to some doctors in the US to use the drug on coronavirus patients, however a leading US expert said there was no evidence to support the use of the drug on coronavirus patients.
Dr Anthony Fauci said evidence in favour of using the drug was anecdotal and the FDA has also warned against the use of the drug outside of a hospital setting.
Despite a lack of final data, the AAPS has said doctors should continue to use the malaria drug.
The report produced by the AAPS included patient data for the Covid patients. 53.2 per cent of which were female and 46.8 per cent were male.
The study found that mortality rates were also lower for the patients that received the malaria drug.
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11506712/trump-hydroxychloroquine-does-help-coronavirus-patients/