Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered 1 million doses of a drug touted by President Trump as a possible treatment for critically ill patients with COVID-19 to be delivered to his state.
Florida, which implemented social distancing measures last week, is expected to reach its apex in terms of cases and deaths from the virus on April 21.
“This is something that a physician recommends under supervision,” DeSantis said, according to WPEC in Palm Beach.
The anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, was touted by Trump as a possibly effective way of treating the virus.
“It’s a powerful drug on malaria, and there are scientific works on this. Some strong signs,” Trump said this weekend. “What do you have to lose? If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn’t do it early.”
Members of Trump’s White House task force have said there was not enough scientific evidence to prove the drug can be used as an effective treatment.
“The data are really just, at best, suggestive. There have been cases that show there may be an effect, and there are others to show there’s no effect,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
The doses will be sent to select hospitals in high-population areas of the state, such as Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
“Nobody really knows whether this drug works or not,” Olayemi Osiyemi, an infectious disease doctor in West Palm Beach, told local media. “We’ve used it, but we haven’t really seen success.”
Some physicians in other parts of the country have reported success with hydroxychloroquine when combined with other drugs.
A doctor in Los Angeles said this week some critically ill patients became “symptom free” after he administered the drug to them. A state lawmaker in Michigan also said the drug “saved her life” after she took it when she started to feel symptoms of the virus.
In Florida, more than 14,000 cases of the virus have been reported, and 295 people have died as of Wednesday morning.
