{"id":26036,"date":"2020-05-26T00:08:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T18:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/coronavirus-who-suspends-clinical-trials-of-hydroxychloroquine-over-safety-concerns\/"},"modified":"2020-05-26T00:08:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T18:38:24","slug":"coronavirus-who-suspends-clinical-trials-of-hydroxychloroquine-over-safety-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=26036","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus | WHO suspends clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine over safety concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marseille-based doctor Professor Didier Raoult has consistently argued that the drugs have a tangible benefit.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AFP<\/a> | Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Health Organization said on Monday that it had \u201ctemporarily\u201d suspended clinical trials of hydroxychloriquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 being carried out across a range of countries as a precautionary measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision came after the publication last week of a study in the Lancet indicating that the using the drug on COVID-19 patients could increase their likelihood of dying, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference, adding that the WHO-backed trials had been \u201csuspended while the safety is reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydroxycholoroquine has been touted by Donald Trump and others as a possible treatment for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The U.S. President has said he was taking the drug to help prevent infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board,\u201d Tedros said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the other arms of the trial \u2014 a major international initiative to hold clinical tests of potential treatments for the virus \u2014 were continuing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WHO has previously recommended against using hydroxychloroquine to treat or prevent coronavirus infections, except as part of clinical trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO emergencies programme, said the decision to suspend trials of hydroxychloroquine had been taken out of \u201can abundance of caution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French doctor defiant on hydroxychloroquine despite study<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A controversial French doctor insisted he stood by his belief that\u00a0anti-viral drugs hydroxychloroquine\u00a0and chloroquine can help patients recover from the coronavirus, rejecting a study that indicated there was no benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marseille-based doctor Professor Didier Raoult has earned huge prominence in France during the crisis for his controversial beliefs and was visited by President Emmanuel Macron in person as the head of state sounded out experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raoult has consistently argued that the drugs have a tangible benefit, a stance that has been loudly backed by President Donald Trump who has said he has even been taking hydroxychloroquine as a precaution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow can a messy study done with \u2018big data\u2019 change what we see?\u201d, Raoult asked in a video posted on the website of his infectious diseases hospital in Marseille.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere we have had 4,000 people go through our hospital, you don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to change because there are people who do \u2018big data\u2019, which is a kind of completely delusional fantasy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His comments came as the World Health Organization said it was suspending trial of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment over safety concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing will change what I have seen with my own eyes,\u201d added Raoult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydroxychloroquine is normally used to treat arthritis while chloroquine is an anti-malarial. Both drugs can produce potentially serious side effects, particularly heart arrhythmia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raoult, a distinctive figure with his shoulder-length shaggy grey hair, ended the video by repeating another controversial claim that \u201cthis is the end of the epidemic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the records of 96,000 patients across hundreds of hospitals, the study published in The Lancet found that administering the drugs actually increased the risk of dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macron met Raoult at his hospital in April as the president canvassed opinion about the next policy steps to make in the fight against the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Elysee insisted at the time that the visit — which raises eyebrows in some quarters — did not represent any kind of \u201crecognition\u201d of the professor\u2019s methods<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marseille-based doctor Professor Didier Raoult has consistently argued that the drugs have a tangible benefit. AFP | Reuters The World Health Organization said on Monday that it had \u201ctemporarily\u201d suspended clinical trials of hydroxychloriquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 being carried out across a range of countries as a precautionary measure. The decision came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}