South Dakota will be the first state to hold a statewide trial for hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment of the coronavirus.
Gov. Kristi Noem announced on Monday that the state health department and every major hospital would take part in a clinical trial to treat COVID-19 patients and those who have been exposed to individuals who tested positive for the coronavirus. The trial, which will be led by Sanford Health, was given approval by federal authorities to be the first statewide trial of the drug.
“We are going to be the first state in the nation to run a statewide clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine. It will be used to fight COVID-19, and the team behind me, Sanford Health, has helped lead this effort,” Noem said.
“For the past week, I have been in direct contact with the White House, with President Trump’s team, spoken with Vice President Pence, Jared Kushner, the chief of staff, many within the task force on making sure that they knew what we wanted to do here in South Dakota — that we had all of our health systems on board in partnering with us. … This would be the first-ever state-endorsed, state-backed, statewide clinical trial available in the United States to help take care of our people here,” the Republican governor added.
Noem noted that doses of the drug were already being administered to patients. She added, “We’re going on offense to help every single person deal with this virus and be willing to fight it and get better and go home to their families.”
The trial will include two parts. The first will allow people who are already sick from COVID-19 to take hydroxychloroquine either in an inpatient or outpatient setting to see if it works as a therapeutic and mitigates the extreme symptoms of the virus. The other trial will test those exposed to the coronavirus, including medical professionals and family members of those infected, to see if they can stop the virus before it infects vulnerable people.
Trump has been vocal about his support for trying hydroxychloroquine, which is used to treat malaria, lupus, and arthritis, on coronavirus patients. Noem noted that the science gathered from the trials could help people across the country manage the virus and stop the spread to vulnerable populations. While there has been anecdotal evidence of success with the medication treating symptoms of the coronavirus, no formal evidence has been gathered to prove the effectiveness of the medication.
South Dakota is one of the few states without a stay-at-home order. The state has relatively few cases of the coronavirus, with the exception of a major outbreak at a Smithfield Foods processing plant, which infected more than 230 workers last week — more than half of the state’s active COVID-19 cases.
