Sophie, we may have a treatment

[Libertarian666]

@WiseOne

https://kfor.com/health/coronavirus/dru ... tion-says/

[WiseOne]

My sister sent me this article. She's always looking for ways to tweak me about how incompetent doctors are. I told her I suspected this was an unfounded internet rumor. Either that or some anecdotal case in Oklahoma that means nothing, because we don't know enough about the natural history of the disease to know when something appears to be working to treat it. You need controlled/randomized clinical trials for that. If they do one of those in a pilot study (e.g. treat 10 -20 patients and compare outcomes with a similar number of untreated patients matched for age, gender, and other clinical variables) and then report that, then I'll pay attention.

[Libertarian666]

My sister sent me this article. She's always looking for ways to tweak me about how incompetent doctors are. I told her I suspected this was an unfounded internet rumor. Either that or some anecdotal case in Oklahoma that means nothing, because we don't know enough about the natural history of the disease to know when something appears to be working to treat it. You need controlled/randomized clinical trials for that. If they do one of those in a pilot study (e.g. treat 10 -20 patients and compare outcomes with a similar number of untreated patients matched for age, gender, and other clinical variables) and then report that, then I'll pay attention.

Thanks for the reply.
May I suggest that you look at the world map for malaria, then look at the world map for coronavirus?
I think you will see an interesting correlation.

[Cortopassi]

tech, this is being talked about, sure.

I see some early articles about its potential use in China mid Feb. Do you know if it is being used in Italy? I have not heard anything along those lines.

[shekels]

@WiseOne

https://kfor.com/health/coronavirus/dru ... tion-says/

I think S Korea was trying Chliriquine also.
I also heard Chloroquine is available in The U.S. only in small quantities.
So does China make this drug also?

[WiseOne]

My sister sent me this article. She's always looking for ways to tweak me about how incompetent doctors are. I told her I suspected this was an unfounded internet rumor. Either that or some anecdotal case in Oklahoma that means nothing, because we don't know enough about the natural history of the disease to know when something appears to be working to treat it. You need controlled/randomized clinical trials for that. If they do one of those in a pilot study (e.g. treat 10 -20 patients and compare outcomes with a similar number of untreated patients matched for age, gender, and other clinical variables) and then report that, then I'll pay attention.

Thanks for the reply.
May I suggest that you look at the world map for malaria, then look at the world map for coronavirus?
I think you will see an interesting correlation.

Doesn't hold up tech. First of all, the lower number of cases is probably mostly because countries in Africa etc have less international travel, AND almost no capability to do COVID testing or reliably gather and report data.

Second, in endemic areas it's kids who get malaria, not the older adults who susceptible to COVID19. The adults develop an immunity after they go through their childhood malaria episodes.

I tend to think this is an example of grasping at straws, but if some more solid evidence emerges I would be just as happy to see it as you. The most telling part of it, to me, is where the report is coming from. Major centers would be studying it already if there was any reason to believe it actually worked. NIH has already put out RFAs for COVID19 clinical studies.

[Libertarian666]

My sister sent me this article. She's always looking for ways to tweak me about how incompetent doctors are. I told her I suspected this was an unfounded internet rumor. Either that or some anecdotal case in Oklahoma that means nothing, because we don't know enough about the natural history of the disease to know when something appears to be working to treat it. You need controlled/randomized clinical trials for that. If they do one of those in a pilot study (e.g. treat 10 -20 patients and compare outcomes with a similar number of untreated patients matched for age, gender, and other clinical variables) and then report that, then I'll pay attention.

Thanks for the reply.
May I suggest that you look at the world map for malaria, then look at the world map for coronavirus?
I think you will see an interesting correlation.

Doesn't hold up tech. First of all, the lower number of cases is probably mostly because countries in Africa etc have less international travel, AND almost no capability to do COVID testing or reliably gather and report data.

Second, in endemic areas it's kids who get malaria, not the older adults who susceptible to COVID19. The adults develop an immunity after they go through their childhood malaria episodes.

I tend to think this is an example of grasping at straws, but if some more solid evidence emerges I would be just as happy to see it as you. The most telling part of it, to me, is where the report is coming from. Major centers would be studying it already if there was any reason to believe it actually worked. NIH has already put out RFAs for COVID19 clinical studies.

Yes, I understand that the studies haven't been done. I have read reports that they are starting them.

But if it appears to have any likelihood of working, I expect it to be tried as soon as there aren't enough beds or health care workers to use the standard approach. It's an old drug with a pretty good short-term safety record, so if the alternative is to let the patient die, do you have to wait for clinical studies?

[Libertarian666]

"Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32074550

[WiseOne]

That's not a publication, just a claim. The numbers also don't make sense...they list a large number of trials and then said something about "100 patients", which is way too few for the claimed number of studies. Having reviewed a lot of papers from China, I am naturally suspicious so I did a little more digging. Here is what I found:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

Highlights
• In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication.

• In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models.

• Chloroquine has been proposed several times for the treatment of acute viral diseases in humans without success.

• The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data.

• Peer review of the results and an independent assessment of the potential benefit for patients are essential.

Oxford in the UK is running a study, so hopefully there will be some more definitive news on this soon. Don't hold your breath though.

[Smith1776]

That's not a publication, just a claim. The numbers also don't make sense...they list a large number of trials and then said something about "100 patients", which is way too few for the claimed number of studies. Having reviewed a lot of papers from China, I am naturally suspicious so I did a little more digging. Here is what I found:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

Highlights
• In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication.

• In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models.

• Chloroquine has been proposed several times for the treatment of acute viral diseases in humans without success.

• The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data.

• Peer review of the results and an independent assessment of the potential benefit for patients are essential.

Oxford in the UK is running a study, so hopefully there will be some more definitive news on this soon. Don't hold your breath though.

WiseOne, as a health professional, how are you treating this in terms of your day-to-day lifestyle? Are you staying in your home basically no matter what? Or are you going out and just being a little more careful with hand washing, etc?

Like, if you thought to yourself "Damn I need those extra ingredients to finish off this dinner I want to make tonight."

Would you avoid going out to grab those item?

[Libertarian666]

That's not a publication, just a claim. The numbers also don't make sense...they list a large number of trials and then said something about "100 patients", which is way too few for the claimed number of studies. Having reviewed a lot of papers from China, I am naturally suspicious so I did a little more digging. Here is what I found:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

Highlights
• In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication.

• In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models.

• Chloroquine has been proposed several times for the treatment of acute viral diseases in humans without success.

• The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data.

• Peer review of the results and an independent assessment of the potential benefit for patients are essential.

Oxford in the UK is running a study, so hopefully there will be some more definitive news on this soon. Don't hold your breath though.

I'm not holding my breath, but I can tell you that if I got cv, I would be very tempted to try to find a doctor to prescribe this off-label.

[Cortopassi]

Does Tamiflu help reduce symptoms? Have not heard anything, so I assume no?

[D1984]

Does Tamiflu help reduce symptoms? Have not heard anything, so I assume no?

I think the Chinese tried Tamiflu (osteltamivir) by itself back in January and it didn't do much if any good. IIRC in Thailand recently they used Tamiflu together with Lopimune to treat two fairly critical elderly patients at Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok and it seemed to help (well, the patients didn't die, at least).

The problem is that there really haven't been any actual blinded controlled trials to see what works and what doesn't so it's all just "throw pharmaceuticals at the bug and see if it helps" at this point. There are plenty of potential candidates...the abovementioned Tamiflu/Lopimune combo, Kaletra, chloroquine, chloroquine plus zinc, chloroquine plus high dose ascorbate, chloroquine plus Kaletra (although might have to watch out for QT interval elongation with that combo), hydroxychloroquine (which was was found to be more potent than chloroquine in inhibiting SARS-COV2 in vitro), camostat mesilate, sofosbuvir plus ribavirin, Avigan (favilavir AKA favipiravir), remdesivr, Nafamostat, nitazoxanide, even one called EIDD-2801 that is so new it doesn't have a trade name yet....we just haven't done the trials and obviously we are kind of in a time crunch now (plus who wants risk being merely put in the "placebo" arm of the trial if they are deathly ill and a drug could mean this difference between dying or not?).

Given that the government pretty much let the highly experimental Ebola drug ZMapp be tried on Drs. Brantly and Whitebol in what was beyond even a "compassionate use exemption" trial (IIRC it hadn't even been human tested for safety in Phase I trials at the time....only animal tested) and it may have saved their lives I don't see why they don't at least grant some kind of compassionate use exemption for the abovementioned drugs (especially since many of them are already approved for clinician use in humans for malaria, HIV, flu, parasitic infections,etc) to be usedexperimenatlly and/or "off-label" as needed.

[Libertarian666]

This seems to indicate there is evidence for chloroquine:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2P ... -7deJ7/pub

[D1984]

Hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin very effective against COVID-19 (moreso than chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine alone, apparently)...and this was a trial done in actual patients (albeit unblinded and with not nearly as many patients as one would expect in a full-scale clinical trial), not in test tubes.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927033

"After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).

In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.

At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%."


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32150618

Here is a link to the original in-vitro study on hydroxychloroquine vs chloroquine (done in the lab but not in COVID-19 patients themselves) from China. Note that the trial mentioned above in Medscape was done in France, not China--in case anyone feels that the Chinese data is suspect.

[Libertarian666]

Hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin very effective against COVID-19 (moreso than chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine alone, apparently)...and this was a trial done in actual patients (albeit unblinded and with not nearly as many patients as one would expect in a full-scale clinical trial), not in test tubes.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927033

"After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).

In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.

At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%."


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32150618

Here is a link to the original in-vitro study on hydroxychloroquine vs chloroquine (done in the lab but not in COVID-19 patients themselves) from China. Note that the trial mentioned above in Medscape was done in France, not China--in case anyone feels that the Chinese data is suspect.

I can't see the Medscape article because I need an account and I can't tell them my "country of practice".

[D1984]

Hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin very effective against COVID-19 (moreso than chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine alone, apparently)...and this was a trial done in actual patients (albeit unblinded and with not nearly as many patients as one would expect in a full-scale clinical trial), not in test tubes.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927033

"After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).

In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.

At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%."


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32150618

Here is a link to the original in-vitro study on hydroxychloroquine vs chloroquine (done in the lab but not in COVID-19 patients themselves) from China. Note that the trial mentioned above in Medscape was done in France, not China--in case anyone feels that the Chinese data is suspect.

I can't see the Medscape article because I need an account and I can't tell them my "country of practice".

They don't actually verify name, info, or email address or the fact that you are (or aren't) a medical practitioner when you join. Just choose "Register For Free", create some made-up fake Gmail address, give made-up info, and then select "continue to Medscape" and it'll get you to the original article.

[Benko]

WiseOne

On Tuesday, a team of French scientists released the first results of a clinical study of the use of hydroxychloroquine on 24 coronavirus patients from southeast France.

The research team, led by Didier Raoult, a renowned infectious disease expert from l’Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire in Marseille, administered the drug for 10 days along with azithromycin, a common antibiotic.

Researchers said the drugs cleared the virus in the nose and throat of most observed patients in three to six days. The study found that after six days of treatment, 70 percent of patients administered hydroxychloroquine were clear of the virus, compared to just 12.5 percent of patients who were not given drugs.

Azithromycin boosted the effect of hydroxychloroquine, according to the study. After six days of treatment, all patients treated with the drug combination “were virologically cured,” compared to 57.1 percent of patients treated with hydroxycholorquine by itself.

Lab studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine, which was developed in the 1940s, inhibited coronavirus. A study published in Cell Discovery on Wednesday by three Chinese scientists found that hydroxychloroquine inhibited coronavirus in vitro, or in a lab culture.

Info at daily caller

[Libertarian666]

WiseOne

On Tuesday, a team of French scientists released the first results of a clinical study of the use of hydroxychloroquine on 24 coronavirus patients from southeast France.

The research team, led by Didier Raoult, a renowned infectious disease expert from l’Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire in Marseille, administered the drug for 10 days along with azithromycin, a common antibiotic.

Researchers said the drugs cleared the virus in the nose and throat of most observed patients in three to six days. The study found that after six days of treatment, 70 percent of patients administered hydroxychloroquine were clear of the virus, compared to just 12.5 percent of patients who were not given drugs.

Azithromycin boosted the effect of hydroxychloroquine, according to the study. After six days of treatment, all patients treated with the drug combination “were virologically cured,” compared to 57.1 percent of patients treated with hydroxycholorquine by itself.

Lab studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine, which was developed in the 1940s, inhibited coronavirus. A study published in Cell Discovery on Wednesday by three Chinese scientists found that hydroxychloroquine inhibited coronavirus in vitro, or in a lab culture.

Info at daily caller

I've posted a thread with a link to the paper.

[Libertarian666]

Hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin very effective against COVID-19 (moreso than chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine alone, apparently)...and this was a trial done in actual patients (albeit unblinded and with not nearly as many patients as one would expect in a full-scale clinical trial), not in test tubes.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927033

"After 6 days, the percentage of patients testing positive for COVID-19 who received hydroxychloroquine fell to 25% versus 90% for those who did not receive the treatment (a group of untreated COVID-19 patients from Nice and Avignon).

In addition, comparing untreated patients, those receiving hydroxychloroquine and those given hydroxychloroquine plus the antibiotic azithromycin, the results showed there was "a spectacular reduction in the number of positive cases" with the combination therapy, said Prof Raoult.

At 6 days, among patients given combination therapy, the percentage of cases still carrying SRAS-CoV-2 was no more than 5%."


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32150618

Here is a link to the original in-vitro study on hydroxychloroquine vs chloroquine (done in the lab but not in COVID-19 patients themselves) from China. Note that the trial mentioned above in Medscape was done in France, not China--in case anyone feels that the Chinese data is suspect.

I can't see the Medscape article because I need an account and I can't tell them my "country of practice".

They don't actually verify name, info, or email address or the fact that you are (or aren't) a medical practitioner when you join. Just choose "Register For Free", create some made-up fake Gmail address, give made-up info, and then select "continue to Medscape" and it'll get you to the original article.

Ok, thanks.

[Maddy]

Well chloroquine and chlorine sound alike. . .
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/0 ... k-cleaner/

[CT-Scott]

Well chloroquine and chlorine sound alike. . .
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/0 ... k-cleaner/

I was just planning to post a link to a story about this tragedy. I hate to say disparaging things about people who suffer a tragedy, but these two were pretty dumb. Before you ingest anything in your body, make sure you know what you're actually taking and what the risks are. Reading some of the quotes from the woman, I get the idea that it was her idea to take it. If so, she now also has to live with having caused her husband's death.

[WiseOne]

I was actually about to post an article about this case - DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!! obviously.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/man-dies- ... ronavirus/

Better source than the post above, I suspect. The product did contain a form of chloroquine, but it's the formulation that was a problem.

[Libertarian666]

I was actually about to post an article about this case - DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!! obviously.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/man-dies- ... ronavirus/

Better source than the post above, I suspect. The product did contain a form of chloroquine, but it's the formulation that was a problem.

Yes, I saw an article about a run on fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine.

There are also reports of people taking enormous amounts of the correct drug and getting poisoned.

Don't try this at home, kids.

[Mountaineer]

Idiots! At least the gene pool may be improving.

Sorry, I'm trying to see the silver lining in that black cloud of an article.