There are studies and pending test results by the United States FDA that Malaria’s medicine chloroquine and another version of the treatment, hydroxychloroquine could be used to treat and cure patients with corona Virus– COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments.
10,047 people have died so far from the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak as of March 20, 2020. You can follow daily deaths and new cases of the virus here.
Corona Virus Cure
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Thursday that chloroquine and another malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine can be used to cure the more global health threat–Chinese weapon.
Soon after the President confirmed to the nation in his Televised Address to the Nation that Kenya had seven confirmed cases, tension reigned the State.
Latest, Tanzania authorities reported 2 more cases of corona-virus in Zanzibar and Dar-esalaam. Tanzanian rapper Hamis Mwinjuma alias Mwana FA on Thursday tested positive for the coronavirus. The artist had traveled to South Africa recently and upon his return home experienced flu like symptoms and a fever.
USA Research on Corona Virus Cure
The antimalarial treatment has shown promise in treating patients and is already being studied as a possible COVID-19 treatment by researchers at the University of Minnesota.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fast-tracked the approval process, cutting a process that would normally take a long time down to a short time period, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
He said the drug, which is also used to treat arthritis, has shown encouraging—very, very encouraging—early results. The president promoted chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as being able to be used in treating COVID-19 patients.
Packets of Nivaquine tablets containing chloroquine, and Plaquenil tablets containing hydroxychloroquine, drugs that have shown signs of effectiveness against the CCP virus, at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Institute in Marseille, France, on Feb. 26, 2020. (Gerard Julien/AFP via Getty Images)
“In the short term, we’re looking at drugs that are already approved for other indications. Many Americans have read studies and heard media reports about this drug chloroquine, which is an anti-malarial drug. It’s already approved, as the president said, for the treatment of malaria, as well as an arthritis condition. That’s a drug that the president has directed us to take a closer look at, as to whether an expanded use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients. The agency wants to look at the drug in a clinical trial” Hahn told reporters that the drug is approved to treat malaria and arthritis but not for use in patients with the new illness.
Some pharmaceuticals are prescribed by doctors even if they’re not approved for specific uses by the FDA in what’s known as off-label use.
“From the FDA perspective, once the FDA approves a drug, healthcare providers generally may prescribe the drug for an unapproved use when they judge that it is medically appropriate for their patient,” the FDA states on its website.
Off-label use includes using a drug for a disease or medical condition that it’s not approved to treat.
Trump spoke before Hahn, saying because the drug has been around “we know that if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody.”
Americans will be able to obtain chloroquine by prescription, he said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told the president late Wednesday that he wants the drug to be prescribed in New York.
Another Possible Cure/Vaccine?
Remdesivir is close to being approved by the FDA, he added. Hahn said remdesivir is in the approval process and emphasized that the FDA is responsible for making sure drugs are safe and work.
No drugs are approved for the treatment of the new virus, which also has no vaccine at present.
Another treatment in the works, Hahn said, is using plasma from blood taken from patients who have recovered from the CCP virus.
“If you’ve been exposed to coronavirus and you’re better, you don’t have the virus in your blood. We could collect the blood now this is a possible treatment. This is not a proven treatment, I just want to emphasize that.”
Researchers would collect the blood, concentrate it, and, after verifying it’s virus-free, give it to other patients.
“The immune response could potentially provide a benefit to patients,” Hahn said.
The new virus started in China last year. The Epoch Times refers to it as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
Multicountry Trial
The World Health Organization (WHO), meanwhile, said this week that it’s launching a multicountry trial for potential CCP virus treatments.
Canada, France, Spain, and Thailand are among the countries that have already joined the effort, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
“Multiple small trials with different methodologies may not give us the clear strong evidence we need about which treatments help to save lives. This trial focuses on the key priority questions for the public. Do any of these drugs reduce mortality? Do any of these drugs reduce the time a patient is in hospital and whether or not the patients receiving any of the drugs needed ventilation or intensive care units,” Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, who leads the WHO’s research and development group said.
The trials will examine four potential treatments: remdesivir, chloroquine, a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, and a combination of those two plus interferon beta.
“Chloroquine will be tested in some places, while hydroxychloroquine will be tested in others,” Henao-Restrepo said.
