The top infectious disease expert on President Trump’s coronavirus task force downplayed the promise of an anti-malaria drug touted by Trump and Dr. Mehmet Oz as a possible coronavirus treatment.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked Friday morning on Fox & Friends to respond to Oz, who earlier in the program left a question for Fauci about a small Chinese study he said showed the use of hydroxychloroquine led to “statistically significant improvement” in cough, fever, and pneumonia among patients with a mild case of COVID-19.
“That was not a very robust study,” Fauci cautioned.
“It is still possible that there is a beneficial effect,” he added. “But the study that was just quoted on a scale of strength of evidence — that’s not overwhelmingly strong. It’s an indication — a hint of it.”
As intensive controlled trials are underway, and the results not expected to come in for weeks if not months, the Food and Drug Administration issued a limited emergency use authorization for two malaria drugs Sunday night — chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine — with certain restrictions.
Trump said on Monday that U.S. health officials should have a “good idea” whether hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for fighting the coronavirus in a matter of days as New York began a large-scale clinical trial with three medicines: hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin.
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Fauci was also asked about an international poll of more than 6,000 doctors released on Thursday that showed hydroxychloroquine was the “most effective therapy” for the novel coronavirus. “We don’t operate on how you feel. We operate on what evidence is and data is,” he said.
“So although there is some suggestion with the study that was just mentioned by Dr. Oz, granted there is a suggestion that there is a benefit there. I think we’ve gotta be careful that we don’t make that majestic leap to assume that this is a knockout drug,” Fauci continued. “We still need to do the kinds of studies that definitively prove whether any intervention, not just this one, any intervention is truly safe and effective. But when you don’t have that information, it’s understandable, and I grant that it’s understandable why people may want to take something anyway even with the slightest hint of it being effective. And I have no problem with that.”
