A man in Florida who tested positive for the coronavirus claimed the drug President Trump touted as a possible treatment saved him from death.
Trump said an anti-malaria drug called hydroxychloroquine might be a viable option for treating the coronavirus, tweeting Saturday: “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH … be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!”
Rio Giardinieri, 52, told Los Angeles’s Fox 11 that after contracting the coronavirus and suffering with debilitating back pain, headaches, cough, and fatigue, doctors said there were no options left for treatment.
“I was at the point where I was barely able to speak, and breathing was very challenging,” Giardinieri said. “I really thought my end was there.”
On Friday, he said goodbye to his wife and three children, thinking he would be the next victim of the COVID-19 virus.
Then a friend sent him an article about hydroxychloroquine.
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U.S. doctors have not cleared the drug as a treatment option for the coronavirus, but Giardinieri pushed for a prescription.
“[The doctor] gave me all the reasons why I would probably not want to try it because there are no trials, there’s no testing, it wasn’t something that was approved,” Giardinieri said. “And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know if I’m going to make it until the morning,’ because at that point, I really thought I was coming to the end because I couldn’t breathe anymore.”
Thirty minutes later, nurses administered the drug, and for two hours, he felt his heart race and experienced an episode where he couldn’t breathe.
He then woke up at 4:45 the next morning and felt “like nothing ever happened.” His breathing went back to normal, and his fever was gone.
Doctors said the episodes of his heart racing and an inability to breathe were his body fighting off the virus, not a reaction to the drug. He took three doses of hydroxychloroquine over the weekend and hopes to be discharged in the coming days.
“To me, there was no doubt in mind that I wouldn’t make it until morning,” Giardinieri said. “So to me, the drug saved my life.”
Anthony Fauci, the leading expert in the United States on infectious diseases, has downplayed the existence of a cure and has said that many drugs were currently being tested that may lessen the severity of the coronavirus. The best medical tool doctors can hope for is a vaccine, which Fauci said was about a year to 18 months away from completion.
