CORONAVIRUS

Hydroxychloroquine, used to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, was declared by President Trump in March 2020 as a “game changer” for the coronavirus pandemic. But public health experts warned that there was little evidence to support using the drug to treat COVID-19.

In May 2020, the School and NYSDOH released results of

a rapid, rigorous observational

study of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin— less than two months after the FDA approved emergency use of hydroxychloroquine. It looked at medical records of hospitalized patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis from 25 hospitals in the greater New York City region, admitted between March 15-28, 2020.

“While we had hoped for a large and immediate beneficial impact of these therapies to help reduce the unnecessary loss of life from COVID-19, for this group of seriously ill patients, we did not observe a significant benefit of the administered drugs,” said lead researcher David Holtgrave.

Hydroxychloroquine taken in conjunction with azithromycin (compared to neither drug) was associated with significantly elevated levels of cardiac arrest even after statistical adjustment for sex, age, underlying health conditions, and more severe illness These findings, among the first in the nation and cited on notable COVID-19 timelines as an early and key observational study in the U.S., came a month before the FDA revoked its emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine. Understanding which treatments appear promising and which do not is critical for enabling researchers to gain further insight into the novel coronavirus and to examine an array of treatment methods.

Pictured above: Dean David Holtgrave featured on CNN to provide his expertise, including to share the results of this hydroxychloroquine study.

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