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Saturday 29 August 2020

Day 166 of self-isolation - More evidence on HCQ

 More evidence on HCQ

A Belgian study has just been published. The summary is that they found
Hydroxychloroquine had some beneficial effects on Covid-19 patients.

This was a retrospective study (not a randomised double-blind) with a sample size of 8075 patients, carried out on data from May 1 to May 24 in Belgian hospitals.

The test was on HCQ alone (without AZM or Zinc), in a low dose.

In previous trials of HCQ, doses of 800 mg were given, another 800 mg after 6 hours, then 400 mg twice per day for 9 days - a total of 9600 mg.

In the Belgian study, the dose was much less - 2400 mg over a period of five days. This is more in accord with the dosage recommended in the "British National Formulary", which is the "bible" of drug usage.

The results were interesting and very encouraging. The paper reports estimated direct-adjusted mortality at 40 days. In the group that wasn't given HCQ, there were 26.5% deaths; in the group that was given HCQ, there were 19.1% deaths. So an additional 7.4% survived.

The chart below shows the various morbidity factors. So, for example, you can see that being a smoker, made your chance of death worse, taking HCQ made your survival chance better.





Another published paper comes from Brazil; that reported that HCQ alone made things slightly worse, HCQ with AZM makes no difference to fatality rates.

Recommendation - follow up this retrospective wth a double-blind randomised trial, using the lower dose of HCQ as used in the Belgian hospitals.

Here's the full Belgian report:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423

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