We won’t suspend hydroxychloroquine trial — NAFDAC
Donald Trump the President of the United States of America once declared that hydroxychloroquine is effective to cure the COVID-19 virus and has since directed clinical trials for the drug.
Though some speculations have it that the drug which is highly effective in the curing of malaria and has been in use for a long time now can lead to death which means it will do harm than good, but we all also know that the drug is effective in curing malaria.
Since the inception of the virus, America has been on a restless quest to get a vaccine and drug for the virus.
Barely 24 hours after the World Health Organisation, WHO, suspended all clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has said the trial will continue in Nigeria. The Director-General of the agency, Mojisola Adeyeye, stated this yesterday in an interview on a private television station.
The UN agency had on Monday said it had ‘temporarily’ suspended the clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 over safety concerns, adding that the decision followed a study in The Lancet that the use of the drug on COVID-19 patients could increase their likelihood of dying.
“The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board,
” WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus had said. Chloroquine is a synthetic drug introduced in the 1940s.
It is a member of an important series of chemically related agents known as quinoline derivatives. Hydroxychloroquine is a related compound that was introduced in 1955. But Mrs Adeyeye said there were proven records that hydroxychloroquine had been effective in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
According to her, this is most effective in those at the mild stage of the virus. “There is data to prove that hydroxychloroquine worked for many COVID-19 patients. Therefore, we would continue our own clinical trials in Nigeria.
Hydroxychloroquine has been proved to work at a mild stage. So the potency depends on the severity of the disease in the patient’s body,” she said.
by: Ayooluwa Joshua