Covid-19: WHO drops HCQ from Solidarity trials, but it wont impact Indian trial of HCQ as prophylaxis

The tale of twists and turns on Hydroxychloroquine – once considered a wonder medicine for Covid-19 – continues with the World Health Organisation discontinuing a global trial of the antimalarial drug after it failed to reduce mortality in hospitalised Covid-19 patients.

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The UN health body took the decision on the basis of interim results from the Solidarity trial that shows the medicine has no impact in reducing the mortality of hospitalised Covid-19 patients. The results were reviewed at a WHO summit on Covid-19 research on July 1-2.

The WHO also dropped another arm of the same trial in which a combination HIV drug lopinavir/ritonavir was used in hospitalised Covid-19 patients as the re-purposed medicines failed to reduce mortality in such infected patients.

“These interim trial results show that hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalised Covid-19 patients when compared to standard care. Solidarity trial investigators will interrupt the trials with immediate effect,” the WHO said in a statement on Saturday.

However, the health agency explained that its decision on HCQ would be pertaining to only hospitalised Covid-19 patients and can not be extrapolated to any other category such as trials to test the medicine’s efficacy as a prophylaxis.

Indian Council of Medical Research has undertaken a study to check the HCQ’s efficacy as preventive medicine.

Nearly six weeks ago, the WHO for the first time suspended the HCQ arm of the Solidarity trial after the publication of a study in the Lancet that raises finger on the medicine by pointing out that it actually increases the death rate and heart complications in patients.

Within days, the study was retracted by the authors due to spurious nature of the data, providing the WHO with an opportunity to resurrect the HCQ arm of the global trial that sought to investigate the efficacy of four re-purposed medicines vis-a-vis the standard care in treating the Covid-19 pandemic.

The solidarity trial started with five branches looking at possible treatment approaches to Covid-19: standard care; remdesivir; hydroxychloroquine; lopinavir/ritonavir; and lopanivir/ritonavir combined with interferon. Two of the five have now been dropped, reducing doctors’ hope to find an effective treatment for Covid-19 pandemic.