Use of Hydroxychloroquine steeply rose in United States from Feb to Mar

Use of Hydroxychloroquine steeply rose in U.S., study finds
Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate tablets, Source: Web

Anti-malarial drugs’ prescriptions hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine steeply rise in the United States from Feb to March, the time when the medicine, although not approved, were hyped as treatments for the COVID-19.

 Analysts suggested the projected number of hydroxychloroquine prescriptions has ramped up 86.2 percent through February to March, from 367,346 to 638,999, and on the other side, chloroquine prescriptions plunged 158.6 percent, and it rose from 2,346 to 6,066 prescriptions.

Besides this, both antibiotic azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine had also been acted as a possible way to cure Coronavirus infection. Moreover, examination demonstrates the expected number of COVID-19 patients taking both medicines ramped up by 1,044 percent during Feb to March, from 8,885 to 101,681.

The complied data, posted in a study letter on Monday by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, got prescription rates for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were constant and stable from Oct 2019 to Feb 2020.  Furthermore, the analysis is based on March’s data.

Use of Hydroxychloroquine steeply rose in United States from Feb to Mar
Source: Web

However, the authors identified that the surged prescriptions might not all to cure the COVID-19 because prescriptions data did not mention that for what purpose those prescriptions were prescribed. Besides this, they said that the quick surge of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions might have impacted availability for patients who prescribed the medicines approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, which includes treating lupus, rheumatoid and malaria.

Trump touted hydroxychloroquine

The FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) withdrew its extremity use approval for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for Coronavirus on the 15th of June. According to some researchers thought, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine could help to cure COVID-19 based on the first laboratory examination, and Trump proved as a cheerleader for the treatment, and called it very powerful and very encouraging and even used words ‘game-changer.’

Although in fresh researches of Coronavirus patients, the medicines have significantly not stacked up. On June 20, in the news, NIH said that while there was no danger, the research drug was very unlikely to helpful to those patients who are hospitalized with Coronavirus.

Last week, a researcher’s group at Southeast Michigan’s Henry Ford Health System declared that they acknowledged Coronavirus patients provided with hydroxychloroquine were very less likely to die, but other researchers opposed that study and raised doubts about that research.

The chairman of the dept. of medicine at NY Medical College, Dr. Neil Schluger, said that the totality of the evidence is significantly on the side of the medicine not having an effect.