April 6, 2020

FRANCE: French Government Reverses Earlier Ban On Hydroxychloroquine For Treating Coronavirus Patients In Light Of Successful Clinical Studies Showing Significant Efficacy Against The Virus.

The Local, France
written by AFP staff
Tuesday March 24, 2020

The anti-malarial drug chloroquine can be administered in France to patients suffering from the severest forms of the coronavirus but only under strict supervision, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Monday.

Citing a ruling adopted after a meeting of France's high public health council, Veran said the drug could not be used to treat milder cases of the illness.

Some researchers have said chloroquine shows great promise as a treatment, though scientists have agreed that more trials are needed to determine if the drug is really effective and safe.

"The high council recommends not to use this treatment... with the exception of grave cases, hospitalised, on the basis of a decision taken by doctors and under strict surveillance," Veran told reporters.

President Donald Trump has said the US is fast-tracking chloroquine for use as a treatment but other voices have urged prudence over its effectiveness.

Experts are divided over whether the drugs are suitable though, having undergone only the briefest of clinical trials.

"We're going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that's where the (Food and Drug Administration) has been so great," Trump told reporters, referring to both antimalarials.

"They've gone through the approval process -- it's been approved. They took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we're going to be able to make that drug available by prescription."

"As an example, many Americans have read studies and heard media reports about this drug chloroquine, which is an anti-malarial drug.

"It's already approved, as the president said, for the treatment of malaria as well as an arthritis condition.

"That's a drug that the president directed us to take a closer look at, as to whether an expanded use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients."

Chloroquine is a synthetic form of quinine, which has been used to treat malaria since the 1940s. Hydroxychloroquine shares a similar mechanism of action but is less toxic.

French drug maker Sanofi on Wednesday said it stood ready to offer the French government millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine, sold under its brand name Plaquenil, in light of a "promising" study carried out by Didier Raoult (pictured) of the IHU Mediterranee Infection in Marseille.

Raoult reported this week that after treating 24 patients for six days with Plaquenil, the virus had disappeared in all but a quarter of them. The research has not yet been peer reviewed and published.

Last week Swiss laboratory Novartis offered to make available up to 130 million doses of anti-malarial drug chloroquine, which is considered a potential efficient treatment for the coronavirus.

Pharmaceutical industry executives say they expect it will take 12 to 18 months to roll out a vaccine and jointly pledge to make it available worldwide based on need.

Authorities were alarmed last week when a message circulating on the popular WhatsApp messaging service recommended people to take a dangerously high dose of anti-malaria drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19.

DoctorOz published March 23, 2020: COVID-19: The COVID-19 Treatment Controversy: Interview with the Expert Who Believes He Has a Treatment. Meet the Man Behind the French Drug Combo Study. "If you personally had COVID-19, would you treat yourself with this combination therapy?" Here's a sneak peek to my exclusive interview with the author of the French study about the COVID-19 drug combo everyone is talking about right now: hydroxychloroquine & azithromycin.

Tech Startups
written by Staff
Wednesday March 18, 2020

March 27, 2020 Update 9: BREAKING: French researchers just completed new additional study on 80 patients, results show a combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. The team found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86, and in whom the evolution was irreversible.

On March 18, we published a story about a new study published by NIH which shows that Hydroxychloroquine has been found to be more effective and potent than chloroquine in vitro treatment of coronavirus. While the media is focused on the vaccine race and leaving the discussion of THERAPEUTICS almost completely neglected, a recent well controlled clinical study conducted by Didier Raoult​ M.D/Ph.D, et. al in France showed that 100% of patients that received a combination of HCQ and Azithromycin tested negative and were virologically cured within 6 days of treatment. According to a new unearthed paper, new evidence shows CDC knew since at least 2005 that chloroquine is effective against coronaviruses.

In the meantime, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the ‘compassionate use’ of chloroquine to treat coronavirus patients in the United States. In addition, recent guidelines from South Korea and China report that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are effective antiviral therapeutic treatments for novel coronavirus.

A therapeutic agent that prevents infection with novel coronavirus is highly desirable–especially for persons with high-risk exposure (e.g healthcare professionals) as well as persons with comorbidities (heart disease, diabetes, etc) and compromised immune systems. Ground-breaking in vitro studies demonstrate potential efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic for novel coronavirus infection in primate cells.

Note: Hydroxychloroquine (brand name Plaquenil) is an inexpensive, globally available drug (tablet) that was approved for widespread medical use since 1955. It is commonly used today to treat malaria, systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The study is part of the initiative from an independent group of scientists and physicians working on an open-data clinical trial for prevention of COVID-19, through the use of hydroxychloroquine in combination with other therapeutic agents. The group is now calling on President Trump to allow Americans to use the drug.

Unlike a typical commercial drug trial, the objective of the group is to share trial data with the public* and health-care professionals as close to real-time as possible (with a reasonable level of data quality assurance). Given the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic, the group is looking for every possible means to fast-track the effort. You can read their draft paper at https://www.covidtrial.io/

March 27, 2020 Update 8: While we are all talking about anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, Italian doctors said that Tolicizumab, a drug used to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, has shown to be more effective than hydroxychloroquine in treating coronavirus patients.

March 27, 2020 Update 7: Given the wild success of hydroxychloroquine, India government has now banned exports of anti-malaria wonder drug Hydroxychloroquine as demand surges. In a statement issued by India Ministry of Commerce and Industry, exports will be limited to fulfilling existing contracts, while certain shipments on humanitarian grounds may also be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

March 25, 2020 Update 6: While everyone is busy talking about coronavirus, another virus outbreak just came out of China. The virus is called hantavirus. A man in China just died from hantavirus. Over 1,000 cases have now reported.

March 25, 2020 Update 5: Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family practioner in New York, treated 350 coronavirus patients with 100% success using Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate.

March 24, 2020 Update 4: Health agencies are now warning coronavirus patients not to self-medicate with chloroquine as Arizona man dies after taking a form of chloroquine used to clean aquarium (MUST READ).

March 24, 2020 Update 3: Given the success of the two anti-malaria drugs, renowned French research Didier Raoult and the leader of the French study, said in his first interview with U.S. Dr. Oz that it is unethical to deny coronavirus patients access to hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (z-pak).

March 23, 2020 Update 2: WHO launches global ‘Solidarity trial’ of the four most promising drugs for effective treatments of coronavirus starting with 8 countries. The trial will test four different drugs or combinations – remdesivir, a combination of two drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir, the two drugs plus interferon beta, and chloroquine.

March 20, 2020 Update 1: Coronavirus treatment breakthrough: French study confirms that a combination of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Azithromycin are effective in treating COVID-19 patients.
Trust Nodes News
written by Staff
Saturday March 28, 2020

Days after beginning a large scale double blinded trial, the so called gold standard, France has now reached the conclusion chloroquine is recommended to treat corona.

Speaking at a news conference, Jérôme Salomon (pictured), France’s director general of health, said the officially sanctioned prescriptions of chloroquine to treat corona “allows a temporary authorization to allow certain patients with coronavirus to benefit from this therapeutic route.”

Doctors in France now will finally be able to treat patients with Didier Raoult, a renown doctor that specializes in infectious diseases, announcing new clinical results that show out of 80 patients treated with chloroquine, 78 recovered within 5 days.

That’s considerably more than the usual 14 days and for some it can go up to 28 days if they recover at all.

The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, further said on Thursday that doctors can now prescribe chloroquine both in hospital and for home usage:

“Hydroxychloroquine and the combination of lopinavir / ritonavir may be prescribed, dispensed and administered under the responsibility of a doctor to patients affected by Covid-19, in the healthcare establishments which take charge of them, as well as for the continuation of their treatment if their condition allows it and with the authorization of the initial prescriber, at home”.

In America considerable politics has developed over chloroquine, but New York should be out with the results on Monday which may lead to a US wide sanctioned usage of treatment.

In UK the government has prohibited its use outside of trial, but that position is probably untenable now as they have to explain why they are not treating patients as France is doing.

The hope is that once general treatment is given, and preferably early treatment, this situation can be contained as in South Korea or in China or in much of Asia.

Thus they’ll relax the draconian restrictions that have led to supermarkets running out of food even in the nice neighborhoods of London.

A return to normality should then stabilize prices for stocks or cryptos, both of which were on a bull run of sorts before the mass curfews.
UPDATE 4/7/20 at 1:11am: Added info below.

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 4:20 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)