The announcement was made on 25 May. The World Health Organization (WHO) has “temporarily” suspended the clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine it is conducting with partners in several countries as a precautionary measure. This decision follows the publication of a study on Friday in the medical journal The Lancet which found that the use of chloroquine or its derivatives such as hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19 is ineffective or even harmful. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference, adding that the suspension had been decided on Saturday.
More than two months ago, WHO launched clinical trials involving hydroxychloroquine, called “Solidarity”, with the aim of finding an effective treatment for Covid-19.
According to the large study published in The Lancet, neither chloroquine nor its derivative hydroxychloroquine is effective against Covid-19 in hospitalized patients, and these molecules even increase the risk of death and cardiac arrhythmia.
The study analyzed data from approximately 96,000 patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus admitted to 671 hospitals between December 20, 2019 and April 14, 2020, and discharged or died since then. Approximately 15,000 of these patients received one of four combinations (chloroquine alone or combined with the antibiotic, hydroxychloroquine alone or combined with the antibiotic), and these four groups were then compared to the 81,000 patients in the control group who did not receive this treatment.
Trials conducted by WHO and its partners on hydroxychloroquine will be suspended until “the data” collected by the Solidarity trials “are reviewed,” Tedros said. “This is a temporary measure,” said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, head of WHO’s Scientific Department.
The head of WHO wished to recall that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine “are recognized as generally safe for patients with autoimmune diseases or malaria”.