US: Top Medical Association Prohibits Use of Hydroxychloroquine

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has revised its guidelines for the use of hydroxychloroquine advising hospitals to stop using the drug to treat COVID-19 patients. 

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On Friday, the IDSA updated its guidelines on COVID-19 patients,  recommending not to use  hydroxychloroquine in hospitals by itself or along with the antibiotic azithromycin.  The IDSA had previously advised for a limited use of hydroxychloroquine in clinical trials. 

On it’s website, the IDSA published a statement which said: “IDSA’s expert guidelines panel concluded that higher certainty benefits (e.g., mortality reduction) for the use of these treatments are now highly unlikely even if additional high quality data would become available,” the group said in a statement.”

Earlier, President Donald Trump advised the use of hydroxychloroquine as a way to deal with the pandemic. He took to his Twitter account to say: "HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine."

In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also advised not to use hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in COVID-19 patients as it “includes reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.”

Likewise, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel also warned against the use of the drugs as it said the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin also agreed with that the use of HCQ is associated with the risk of sudden “cardiac death in Coronavirus patients.”

Doctors around the world have cautioned against the use of the drug stating it can cause serious heart problems among other health complications.