Use of HCQ led to 17K deaths in 1st Covid wave: Study

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, January 8

Unscientific use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), primarily meant to treat and prevent malaria, during the first Covid-19 wave between March 2020 and January 2021 could have cost many lives, a group of researchers have concluded after studying patients in six countries — the US, Italy, France, Belgium, Turkiye and Spain.

The research

During the first Covid wave, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was used off-label despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits. Since then, a meta-analysis of randomised trials showed that HCQ use was associated with an 11 per cent increase in the mortality rate. The latest research aimed to estimate the number of HCQ-related deaths worldwide.

The main objective of the study, published by Elsevier, titled “Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first Covid-19 wave: An estimate” was to study likely mortality attributed to compassionate use of HCQ in the context of Covid before the publication of reliable randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which showed HCQ use could be associated with 11 per cent rise in deaths.

The current study has put HCQ related deaths in hospitalised patients at 16,990 in six countries with the highest — 12,739 — in the US, where then President Donald Trump called the drug a miracle cure.

“These findings illustrate the hazard of drug repurposing with low-level evidence for the management of future pandemics,” researchers said.

Hydroxychloroquine was prescribed in hospitalised patients with Covid despite the low-level evidence during the first wave even though the WHO on May 24, 2020, temporarily suspended the trials of HCQ for Covid treatment. Till then it was one of the four drugs or drug combinations under the WHO Solidarity Trial designed to enable international cooperation for clinical trials of medicines that could potentially treat Covid-19.

Even after the WHO suspended the HCQ arm of its trial, many nations, including India, continued HCQ use for prevention especially among healthcare practitioners.

In the US, too, in the absence of any other treatment for Sars-Cov2 , the Food and Drug Administration in March 2020 allowed the use of HCQ and chloroquine to treat Covid-19.