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According to a French review study, seriously ill corona patients who were prescribed hydroxychloroquine at the beginning of the pandemic had an 11 percent higher risk of death than people who did not receive the drug. It follows that thousands of people died at the time from the side effects of the drug, which had been on the market for decades and ultimately turned out to be unsuitable for the treatment of corona patients.
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) seemed promising for a short time until studies showed otherwise. Even after scientists had already expressed serious doubts, it was still promoted by then US President Donald Trump, who treated himself with it when he became infected with the coronavirus.
HCQ was marketed decades ago to treat diseases such as malaria and rheumatoid arthritis. Over the course of 2020, it became increasingly clear that the drug was likely doing more harm than good to corona patients admitted. Researchers from the University of Lyon, among others, have now used 44 studies from six countries, including France, the USA and Turkey, to calculate how many seriously ill people died as a result of the wrong medication.
They amount to at least 16,990 deaths in hospitals in the countries examined alone. The Netherlands is not included, although the drug was administered here in 2020. At that time there were already great doubts about the side effects of the drug.
If the 11 percent also applied here, there would be around 200 deaths, calculates microbiologist Marc Bonten (Utrecht University) in the Volkskrant. No investigations were conducted outside of hospitals. “But I don’t think you can blame anyone for that. That was the first wave, the intensive care units were full, people were dying, we were left empty-handed. And laboratory tests have shown that this drug could work,” Bonten told the newspaper.
The drug can cause serious cardiac arrhythmias, particularly in older people, with sometimes far-reaching consequences. The researchers admit their research is limited, but they say there is a clear lesson to be learned for a possible next pandemic: The study “highlights the danger” of using existing drugs based on little evidence, they write Researcher in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.
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