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The Nine Lives of Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine is one of many medications frequently used in rheumatology practice. Its remarkable versatility is attested by its routine use in lupus, in patients with an autoimmune coagulopathy, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as those with a low-level inflammatory arthropathy. It’s an amazing medication, with a novel history and wide array of indication and multiple actions that we now better understand. The HCQ story begins in 1638 when the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, Countess Cinchona, acquired malaria while living in the New World. Rather than getting the “approved” therapy, blood-letting, she was treated by an Incan herbalist with the bark of a tree (eventually,…

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 Hydroxychloroquine: A double‑edged sword

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is an antimalarial drug that has historically been used to treat and prevent malaria. However, its mechanism of action has not yet been fully elucidated.

 Hydroxychloroquine: An old drug with new relevance

Hydroxychloroquine is an immunomodulatory drug that has been used for 60 years to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and inflammatory arthritis, and potential new uses and benefits continue to emerge.

 Hydroxychloroquine: Wonder-drug, killer, or just your standard antimalarial?

Famously promoted by the US president, the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine (sold under the brand name Plaquenil) had become widely considered as a trump card against COVID-19. But on 22nd May, that changed. The Lancet published a study showing an increased risk of mortality in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, sending shockwaves around the world that shut down clinical trials and left individuals taking the prescription medication in fear.

 Infamous paper that popularized unproven COVID-19 treatment finally retracted

Study on hydroxychloroquine by Didier Raoult and colleagues gets pulled on ethical and scientific grounds.

Articles of Interest

A French doctor finds fame promoting malaria pills for covid-19

In late march, outside a brand-new medical institute on a busy boulevard in Marseille, a single-file queue snaked along the pavement. Amid a national shortage of covid-19 tests, local residents had heard that the city’s Institut Hospitalier Universitaire, linked to the main public hospital, was offering to test anybody with even mild symptoms. Word had also spread that the institute’s director, Didier Raoult, was successfully treating patients there with hydroxychloroquine, used to treat malaria, along with an antibiotic. Today, Mr Raoult says coolly that covid-19 has “almost totally disappeared” from Marseille.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (also known as HCQ) are also used to treat conditions including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, along with other, non-malarial, fevers. They are generally well tolerated, with mild side effects including the usual gamut of headache, nausea and skin rashes, but can have some serious long-term effects, such a form of retinopathy that can ultimately lead to blindness.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of malaria and repurposing in treating COVID-19

Chloroquine (CQ) and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) have been commonly used for the treatment and prevention of malaria, and the treatment of autoimmune diseases for several decades. As their new mechanisms of actions are identified in recent years, CQ and HCQ have wider therapeutic applications, one of which is to treat viral infectious diseases. Since the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), CQ and HCQ have been subjected to a number of in vitro and in vivo tests, and their therapeutic prospects for COVID-19 have been proposed.

Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine is a drug developed in the 1940s to treat malaria. It was hoped it could help treat coronavirus infections but several trials have shown it has no beneficial effects and might be harmful. Hydroxychloroquine is a less toxic variant of another malaria drug called chloroquine, but hydroxychloroquine can still cause serious side effects, including heart problems and permanent damage to vision. In most parts of the world, the malaria parasite has evolved resistance to both of these drugs, but hydroxychloroquine is now widely used for other purposes, such as treating the autoimmune disorders lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Hydroxychloroquine against malaria

Hydroxychloroquine is an agent that has been used for years, originally for the treatment of malaria. It is also widely used to treat patients with rheumatic diseases, because hydroxychloroquine has immunomodulatory effects. It is not known exactly how hydroxychloroquine does this. Hydroxychloroquine use for COVID-19 remains a topic of intense debate and investigation. Especially in the context of their use as a prophylaxis, large studies are ongoing to investigate their efficacy.

Hydroxychloroquine and Gin (and Tonic)

The action of hydroxychloroquine is quite similar to quinine, which is found in tonic water. British soldiers stationed in India in the 1800s were given tonic water with quinine in it to help fight malaria and found that the bitter tonic water was made quite a bit more palatable when they added their daily ration of gin in it with a lime slice. And thus, the gin and tonic was invented.

Hydroxychloroquine can’t stop COVID-19. It’s time to move on, scientists say

An abundance of scientific data shows that the drug isn’t an effective COVID-19 treatment.

Hydroxychloroquine Fails to Help Coronavirus Patients in Largest Study of the Drug to Date

In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists led by a team at Columbia University found that people infected with COVID-19 taking hydroxychloroquine do not fare better than those not receiving the drug.

Hydroxychloroquine history and its cardiovascular safety

Quinine has been a famous class of drugs over the last 500 years in the history of medicine. It does not treat disease symptoms, but rather modifies the underlying mechanism of the disproportionate effect of inflammation and immunity.

Hydroxychloroquine tea’ is being peddled as a coronavirus cure in Brazil. It's fake.

Though there’s no proof that hydroxychloroquine fights COVID-19, an Amazon tree is being tapped for its supposed remedy. That may be unsafe.

Hydroxychloroquine: From Malaria to Autoimmunity

Quinine was first recognized as a potent antimalarial agent hundreds of years ago. Since then, the beneficial effects of quinine and its more advanced synthetic forms, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, have been increasingly recognized in a myriad of other diseases in addition to malaria. In recent years, antimalarials were shown to have various immunomodulatory effects, and currently have an established role in the management of rheumatic diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis, skin diseases, and in the treatment of chronic Q fever. Lately, additional metabolic, cardiovascular, antithrombotic, and antineoplastic effects of antimalarials were shown.

Hydroxychloroquine: how an unproven drug became Trump’s coronavirus 'miracle cure'

The story of how hydroxychloroquine was anointed the Trump administration’s miracle drug for the coronavirus pandemic is a distinctly modern tale of misinformation within a global information ecosystem beset by widespread uncertainty, fear, media fragmentation and hyper-partisanship. Belief in the drug’s potential to cure patients infected with the virus followed an extraordinary trajectory from a small study conducted in France (Trump’s “very good test”) to Silicon Valley social media influencers, Fox News and the largest bully pulpit: the White House.

Hydroxychloroquine: Myths, Facts, and Medical Use Cases

Hydroxychloroquine and antimalarial medications are valuable for malaria, lupus, and arthritis. They don’t cure COVID-19.

Malaria Drug Promoted by Trump Did Not Prevent Covid Infections, Study Finds (Published 2020)

The first carefully controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine given to people exposed to the coronavirus did not show any benefit.

New Covid-19 study, despite flaws, adds to case against hydroxychloroquine

This trial tested using the drug right after symptoms began. In the end, only 58% of the people in this study had diagnostic test results. The researchers mailed study drug or placebo to patients without examining them after they enrolled over the internet...

Plaquenil: From Malaria Treatment to Managing Lupus, RA

The history of antimalarials dates back to the 1630s in Peru, where, in all likelihood, malaria was not endemic, and an extract from the “fever tree,” which grew on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Antonio de Calancha, an Augustinian monk, was the European first credited with describing the medicinal effects of the fever tree, “whose bark, of the color of cinnamon, made into powder amounting to the weight of two small silver coins and given as a beverage, cures the fevers and tertiana; it has produced miraculous results in Lima.

Plaquenil: What You Need to Know

Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) is a medication most known for its original purpose of treating or preventing malaria, (a disease caused by parasites that enter the body through the bite of a mosquito). Today, Plaquenil and other antimalarials are also used to treat and help prevent symptoms caused by certain autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus, and discoid lupus, even though these diseases are not caused by malaria parasites.

Rush to trash hydroxychloroquine based on faulty Surgisphere data exposes fundamental flaws in profit-based medical ‘science’

As the WHO and prestigious medical journal the Lancet back away from questionable data provided by healthcare analytics firm Surgisphere, ulterior motives for the rush to demonize hydroxychloroquine become clear.

The Strange and Twisted Tale of Hydroxychloroquine

The much-hyped drug sparked a battle between power and knowledge. Let’s not repeat it.

The verdict on hydroxychloroquine is in

Evidence was shaky at first, but as evidence from clinical trials has come in, the data are pretty clear on how effective the drug really is. Though there aren’t many good options right now, drugs like remdesivir are showing much more promise, so continuing to back a medication like hydroxychloroquine that has been proven not to work is all the more harmful.

Three big studies dim hopes that hydroxychloroquine can treat or prevent COVID-19

Through the fog of alleged misconduct, hope, hype, and politicization that surrounds hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted as a COVID-19 treatment, a scientific picture is now emerging.

Understanding lupus, the disease treated by chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

Chloroquine is a synthetic drug introduced in the 1940s. It is a member of an important series of chemically related agents known as quinoline derivatives. Hydroxychloroquine is a related compound that was introduced in 1955. Both drugs are used in the treatment of tropical diseases such as malaria and amebiasis, a parasitic disease also known as amebic dysentery. They are also useful in the treatment of various skin conditions and diseases of the joints such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

WHO Halts Hydroxychloroquine Trial Over Safety Concerns

The World Health Organization says it is temporarily halting its clinical trials that use hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients over published concerns that the drug may do more harm than good. The move comes after the medical journal The Lancet reported on Friday that patients getting hydroxychloroquine were dying at higher rates than other coronavirus patients.

Why it’s vital to look beyond the hype about repurposed malaria drugs

Recently, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have come to the fore in the search for a treatment for COVID-19. This is because the drugs were shown to prevent viruses from multiplying inside a cell under laboratory conditions. They were tested against HIV and the human coronavirus that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak of 2002-2003. But these studies were mainly done in laboratories and rarely tested in patients.