An article published in The Lancet examines the evidence for the drug hydroxychloroquine’s controversial application as a treatment for COVID, which was initially very encouraging based on the drug in vitro inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, the evidence now definitively shows that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective for COVID.
This would have been very useful if hydroxychloroquine, regularly used to treat rheumatic diseases, could have been used as an easily available treatment.
However, numerous studies since the beginning of the COVID pandemic have reiterated the same findings: that hydroxychloroquine does not reduce mortality risk for people hospitalised with COVID, nor does it shorten recovery times. Nevertheless, interest persisted in the possible preventative effects of hydroxychloroquine against COVID.
Using electronic health records for 30 569 patients, a study comparing hydroxychloroquine use by rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus sufferers to non-users with the same maladies reported no significant difference in standardised cumulative COVID mortality associated with hydroxychloroquine use (0.23% among hydroxychloroquine users and 0.22% among non-users) with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.03 (95% CI 0·80–1·33).
These results reflect those of two studies where hydroxychloroquine was administered as prophylaxis to frontline and health care workers, which also showed no effect.
