in the past few weeks we've been hearing
these six syllables over and over again
hydroxychloroquine hydroxychloroquine i
happen to be taking it the malaria drug
being called a potential coronavirus
cure by some and a potentially harmful
solution by others with the World Health
Organization halting its trials at the
end of May so what exactly is
hydroxychloroquine and will it help with
the fight against kovat 19
this is hydroxychloroquine a
prescription drug and chemical compound
modeled after quinine a once-popular
natural anti malaria drug made from tree
bark as the ideal model for synthetic
malaria drugs in the early 1900's
quinine first paved the way to
chloroquine used around World War two
but there was a slight issue chloroquine
had too many side effects to be widely
used including retinal damage and
hearing issues so in 1955 a less risky
version was made hydroxychloroquine made
from this mix of atoms the only real
difference is the addition of a hydroxyl
group that's dr. Neil sugar the chief of
the division of pulmonary allergy and
critical care medicine at Columbia
University and he says it's this simple
addition of an oxygen bound to a
hydrogen that makes the drug less risky
so those chemical changes are often made
either to improve the drugs activity or
to decrease its toxicity
despite the side-effects chloroquine is
still used in fact both
hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are
considered versatile drugs a valuable
trade in the pharmaceutical industry
which might explain why people thought
the drug originally designed for malaria
could be a treatment for Kovan 19:00
there are actually two main reasons this
theory has become so popular one
hydroxychloroquine works by limiting the
body's immune response
and stops it from going into overdrive
in the first place the drug has been
proven to be effective in treating
autoimmune diseases such as lupus and
rheumatoid arthritis diseases that cause
the immune system to inadvertently
attack and damage the body and although
it hasn't been proven
experts say the drug may have some role
to play in stopping kovat 19 cases from
becoming severe to both
hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have
shown effectiveness against viral
infections in fact multiple studies have
noted hydroxychloroquine x' ability to
smother and reduce HIV replication and
notably researchers have found
chloroquine can actually suppress corona
viruses in cell cultures inhibiting and
limiting replication of the human corona
virus SARS one which emerged in 2002
scientists believe this comes down to
the anti binding ability of chloroquine
specifically its effect on the binding
capabilities of the ACE 2 receptor on
human cells the entry point for not just
the SARS virus but also the Cova denied
teen virus all of this pushed scientists
to study the effects hydroxychloroquine
and chloroquine have on SARS Cove - and
they were somewhat correct lab based
studies found that both have abilities
to fight the kovat 19 corona virus
triggering the FDA to approve emergency
use of these two drugs ANCOVA 19
patients and many others to propose them
as a preventive medication but and this
is a major one how a drug works against
a virus in a lab is not the same as
inside a human things could be
inactivated by a variety of systems in
the human body they could turn out to be
too toxic they could turn out not to be
able to achieve a high enough level in
the blood to be active in human being so
the whole host of reasons why lots of
things that work in test tubes don't
work in human beings crucially
three dishes don't experience side
effects but humans do for
hydroxychloroquine side effects can
range from headaches hair loss and
nausea to something a lot more dangerous
it's one of a large number of drugs that
can affect the electrical activity in
the heart in a way that could make
people susceptible to developing
potentially very dangerous abnormalities
of the heart rhythm that could be fatal
person-to-person these side-effects vary
dramatically so it's difficult to know
how the drug would individually impact
someone which is why doctors have warned
against immediate widespread use and
individual use without medical advice
first because of the FDA emergency
approval however thousands of kovat 19
patients have taken hydroxychloroquine
which has led to large observational
patient studies and some not so
promising results bringing us back to
dr. Neil slugger and his colleagues we
saw no association between receiving the
drug and a favorable outcome or an
unfavorable outcome for that shrew Gers
study wasn't the only one to come to
this conclusion but we analyzed data
from thirteen hundred and seventy-six
patients just a few days after a very
similar analysis on a very similar
number of patients was published in JAMA
almost the identical results in fact
hydroxychloroquine could actually be
making things worse a substantial study
published in late May concluded that
both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine
were associated with higher mortality
among kovat 19 patients and while a few
small studies showed improvements when
tested with humans experts question the
reliability of those studies methods so
I think that's sort of the state of
things right now that these large
observational studies have found no
evidence of benefit and perhaps some
evidence of harm as a result the World
Health Organization halted its sizable
randomized trial use of
hydroxychloroquine fork Ovid 19 patients
still this probably isn't the last we'll
hear of the drug a large-scale study
testing the potential preventive effect
of the drug is currently ongoing in the
UK and organizations and researchers are
looking into other treatments such as
the drug rim des aveer which has shown
promising potential in early stages but
those positive studies have not
concluded that this is a cure for the
disease
so as of late May 2020 there is no
proven treatment for kovat 19 a lot of
good ideas in medicine just don't pan
out and
the only thing you can do is is do the
best studies and let the best drug win
you