- The drug would be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teens and adult patients when a clinical trial is not available or feasible
- The FDA’s chief scientist indicates it’s reasonable to believe the designated drugs are effective in treating COVID-19
- A virologist at Northeast Ohio Medical University says while the drugs could be effective, more clinical trials are needed
In a letter granting emergency approval, FDA’s chief scientist, Denise Hinton, said:
“It is reasonable to believe that chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate may be effective in treating COVID-19.”
“It is definitely one worthy of pursuing, but I would say there’s a number of scientists that would say that labeling it as a miracle drug is probably overly optimistic at this time,” said Angelo DeLucia, Ph.D., professor of molecular virology and cancer biology at Northeast Ohio Medical University
Angelo DeLucia, a virologist at Northeast Ohio Medical University, also known as “NEOMED,” says while anti-malarial drugs could be effective, more clinical trials are needed.
“There’s usually three levels that would be necessary. One is to show that it has very effective and reasonable concentration effectiveness against virus growth or reproduction in laboratories. The second thing is how toxic it is at the levels you project that you need to give in order to stop the virus from reproducing the virus in a human being. Thirdly, then studies in humans, of course,” said DeLucia.
DeLucia says clinical trials are essential in finding out if the drug is effective, not effective at all or harmful to the body.
The FDA’s emergency approval allows the anti-malarial drugs to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19 when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.
DeLucia says if the drug is shown to be effective, producing the drug would be fairly easy to do.
In the meantime, however, DeLucia says social distancing is still the most effective option we have.
“We’re currently doing everything we can to interfere with this virus progression, clearly current situation of trying to keep ourselves apart Is probably the best thing we have at this moment. This work needs to be seriously undertaken so that we can, in fact, be prepared for the next event,” DeLucia said.