Lancet begins probe on study on use of hydroxychloroquin in treating coronavirus

Top medical journal Lancet has begun to probe a controversial study on the use of antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquin in treating COVID-19 patients after receiving complaints from several quarters.

Among those who reached out to the journal are several top Indian scientific organisations that questioned the dataset and the method employed in the study.

According to the controversial study, use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine is linked to increased rates of mortality and heart arrhythmias among hospital patients with COVID-19.

"Important scientific questions have been raised about data reported in the paper. We are issuing an Expression of Concern to alert readers to the fact that serious scientific questions have been brought to our attention," the journal said in a statement.

Soon after the publication of the study, the World Health Organisation temporarily suspended a global trial of the HCQ to check its efficacy in treating COVID-19.

"The (Lancet) study has several limitations as the authors have themselves acknowledged in the article. Using the study to halt the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in the ongoing controlled trial seems questionable," Indian scientists wrote in a letter to the Lancet editor.

The scientists raised several scientific questions and argued that without an answer to such queries, the conclusions would not carry much weight.

"The decision of the WHO to temporarily suspend quality HCQ trials based on findings of this study appears to be a knee-jerk reaction," Indian scientists said in a statement.

The signatories of the letter are Shekhar Mande, director general, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; Anurag Agarwal, director of Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi (one of the CSIR institutes) and Rajeeva Karandikar, director of Chennai Mathematical Institute.

From the beginning of the pandemic, India was using HCQ as a prophylactic on the advice of the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The ICMR has recently advised to expand the use of HCQ as a preventive medicine among all asymptomatic healthcare workers working in Covid and non-Covid hospitals.

In addition, the medicine has been recommended for use among surveillance workers deployed in containment zones, police and paramilitary personnel involved in COVID-19 related activities and asymptomatic household contacts of confirmed cases.

The Lancet said an independent audit of the provenance and validity of the data had been commissioned and results were expected very shortly.

Since the same dataset was used for another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the NEJM editors too launched an independent audit and issued an Expression of Concern.