Front-line workers for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service will be able to test personally whether the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine works to prevent the coronavirus.
Up to 10,000 NHS workers will participate in a trial of the drug touted by President Trump to see if it prevents the coronavirus. The clinical trial will be a global effort, with participants joining from Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.
“We really do not know if chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine are beneficial or harmful against COVID-19,” professor Nicholas White, Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit co-principal investigator, said. “The best way to find out if they are effective in preventing COVID-19 is in a randomized clinical trial.”
Another professor, however, has pushed back on the trial. Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the school of medicine at the University of Leeds, said that taking the drug could hurt participants “but could also deprive patients with chronic autoimmune conditions of their much-needed medication.”
The University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust, supported by the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Thailand, are leading the study.
Hydroxychloroquine has been used to treat critically ill coronavirus patients with some positive results. While the Food and Drug Administration has approved an emergency use authorization for the drug to be made available, it has not approved its use as a coronavirus treatment outside of a hospital or clinical trial.
Trump announced this week that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the coronavirus.
“A lot of good things have come out. And you’d be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the front-line workers, before you catch it. The front-line workers — many, many are taking it. I happen to be taking it,” he said Monday.
The president’s announcement sent shock waves through the political and medical community, with many denouncing the move. Dr. Manny Alvarez, a contributor to Fox News’s health team, said the president taking the medication is “highly irresponsible.”
“I would like the White House physician to come out tomorrow and explain to me what has changed in a week and a half or two weeks for the president to take this medication when all the data that has been coming out very repetitively has shown that there’s really not a major benefit,” Alvarez said this week. “In most hospitals including mine, we’re not using chloroquine in the treatment of COVID patients at the present time, and we have one of the largest populations of COVID admissions in our medical center.”
Trump and his administration have continued to defend the move.
“The president just wanted to be transparent about his personal health decision that he made in consultation with his doctor, and one of the things that I really want to get out there this morning, that unfortunately there’s a lot of misinformation about is, you know, first: Let me emphasize strongly that any use of hydroxychloroquine has to be in consultation with your doctor,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday.
