CDC removes guidance on how to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to patients amid concerns over severe side effects
The US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) has removed guidelines that tell doctors how to prescribe two antimalarial drugs to patients amid concerns over their severe side effects.
The CDC seems to have based its earlier guidelines on anecdotal reports on the antimalarial drugs -Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine - with no proper scientific backing to support them.
According to the updated CDC guidelines on therapeutic options, "There are no drugs or other therapeutics approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prevent or treat COVID-19. The FDA, however, has approved these antimalarial drugs under "emergency use" for hospitalized patients who weigh at least 110 pounds.
Some former FDA officials worry that Trump's advocacy may have coerced the FDA to approve them for emergency use. The US president has been forcing public health officials to make the antimalarial drugs widely available despite scant evidence to support its use for COVID-19 patients. Currently, experts are carrying out clinical trials to investigate if safety and efficacy.
"Anecdotal reports suggest that these drugs may offer some benefit in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients," said the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a statement Sunday, April 5.
Mounting concerns over side effects
But some recent trials seem to be pointing toward a grim picture: the drug is triggering severe side effects in some COVID-19 patients, defeating its purpose. A hospital in France and several others in Sweden have stopped administering the drugs after patients began developing complications.
In Sweden, hospitals in the Västra Götaland region have pulled the plug on the antimalarial medication which appears to have caused unpleasant side effects including headaches, cramps and vision loss, according to the national paper Expressen.
One patient, who was receiving two tablets of chloroquine every day, experienced a headache that felt like stepping into "a high voltage plant," he told the paper.
"There were reports of suspected more serious side effects than we first thought," Dr Magnus Gisslén who treated the patient at Sahlgrenska University Hospital infection clinic, told the Gothenburg Post. "We cannot rule out serious side effects, especially from the heart, and it is a hard-dosed drug. In addition, we have no strong evidence that chloroquine has an effect on COVID-19," he added.
"People do not realize these drug combinations can cause several side effects and even death in severe circumstances," Dr Krutika Kuppalli, Leader in Biosecurity Fellow at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, had earlier told MEA WorldWide (MEAWW).
Another cause of concern is the risk to the heart. The drug appears to have posed a serious risk to a patient's heart health in France, forcing the hospital to stop the experimental treatment on that patient.
Other experts have expressed their concerns over the side effects, especially on those with heart conditions. Both drugs -hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) plus Azithromycin - can lead to abnormal heart rhythms and sudden death, especially to those who have a heart condition, explained Dr Edsel Salvana, director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the National Institutes of Health at the University of the Philippines, in a tweet.