The Lagos State Government has said popular malaria drug, chloroquine, approved by the U.S. for treatment of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has significant side effects and should not be used without medical supervision, stressing it may cause more harm than good.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the U.S. on Thursday approved chloroquine, for the treatment of Coronavirus (COVID-19), with President Donald Trump saying at a Coronavirus Task Force news conference that the drug could help with symptoms of COVID-19.
“It is known as a malaria drug and it’s been around for a long time and it’s very powerful. The nice part is, it’s being around for a long time, and so we know that if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody.”
“Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that and it was approved very, very quickly. We’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately,” Trump said.
However, according to the Lagos State Ministry of Health, there is no hard evidence that chloroquine is effective in preventing or managing COVID-19.
“We are watching the global research space to clearly define its efficiency in COVID-19. Lagos State Ministry of Health will be conducting its own clinical trial on the effectiveness of chloroquine in the prevention or management of COVID-19 infection.
“Chloroquine has significant side effects and should not be used without medical supervision, as it may cause more harm than good. In summary, await our directives for the use of chloroquine and do not use it without medical supervision,” the Ministry stated.
COVID-19: NCDC warns Nigerians against use of Chloroquine
Similarly, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has warned Nigerians against the use of Chloroquine, saying it was not approved for treatment or prevention of COVID-19.
NCDC, in a tweet on Friday, noted that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not approved the use of Chloroquine for COVID-19 management.
The agency said that scientists were working hard to confirm the safety of several drugs for the disease, thus warned citizens against engaging in self-medication.
“This will cause harm and can lead to death,” it said.
Also, Gboyega Akosile, the Chief Press Secretary to the Lagos State Governor, through his Twitter handle, @Gboyegaakosile, disclosed that hospitals were receiving patients suffering from Chloroquine poisoning.
Akosile attributed the information to Dr OreOluwa Finnih, the Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Health.
He urged the citizens against massive consumption of Chloroquine as a measure to fight.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that some Nigerians had started purchasing Chloroquine as a preventive measure against COVID-19, since news broke that China allegedly used Chloroquine as part of treatment for its COVID-19 patients.
Coronavirus: Virologist warns against use of chloroquine
Also, a Clinical Virologist, Dr Adeola Fowotade, has cautioned Nigerians against the use of Chloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, for the treatment of Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
Fowotade, a staff of the University College Hospital Ibadan, gave the warning on Friday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Ibadan.
The virologist said the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has not included the drug as a treatment option for COVID-19 in its treatment guidelines.
She said while early reports from China showed the potency of Chloroquine in treating patients with COVID-19, there was no formal and in-depth study to get information on its efficacy and safety.
“Currently, the studies we have on using chloroquine to treat COVID-19 are mainly from China and they are still evolving research.
“They found that chloroquine has a way of inhibiting COVID-19 by reducing the multiplication of the virus introduced to the cell lines.
“The studies also reveal that chloroquine helped to improve recovery in some patients and also helped to reduce the number of deaths from COVID-19,” she said.
Fowotade said that although chloroquine has shown potency in treating corona virus, NCDC was hesitant to approve it for COVID-19 treatment until adequate clinical trials were conducted.
According to her, there is no enough evidence to also ascertain a safe and effective dosage to use in treating the virus.
“Clinical trials take time but are necessary. Clinical trial is something that is meant to go through a number of phases starting from what they do in cells and they also need to do the same things in animals and they also want to look at the safety of the drugs.
“For instance, if chloroquine is going to be used to treat COVID-19 there is probability that you will be using it at a much higher dose than what you use for malaria and check its safety at that higher dose.
”All these need to be checked even before you get to human clinical trial.
“However, because of the urgency of the situation, the studies done in China simply moved from cells to humans and so the result that they have generated from there is not sufficient enough for us as a country and the NCDC is not adopting chloroquine at the moment.
“In any case, the thing about viral infections ultimately is that most viral infections are self-limiting in immuno competent persons, the immune system is sufficient to clear the virus.
“Ideally, for persons that have good immune response by themselves, if you give them good supportive care, the immune system is able to take care of the viral infection by itself,” she said.
The virologist also cautioned Nigerians against using the antimalarial chloroquine as a prophylactic or preventive drug for COVID-19.
She warned against panicking to avoid falling prey to misinformation and unfounded claims about coronavirus with regard to its prevention and treatment.
“If the virus is not there, then there is no use or basis whatsoever for taking chloroquine as prophylaxis.
“This is just like what happened during the outbreak of Ebola virus when people were told to take salt, the same is happening with chloroquine, this is wrong and should be discouraged.
“When people get misinformed, they take wrong actions and refuse to observe the necessary and the correct actions.
“Ultimately, this puts the lives of people at risk, increase the spread and makes nonsense of the entire control effort,” she said.
NAN reports that chloroquine, which is a medication used to prevent and treat malaria was a widely prescribed treatment for malaria in Nigeria.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States on Thursday said it was looking at a widespread and pragmatic clinical trials of the antimalaria drug for COVID-19.
It has yet to approve chloroquine for the treatment of the coronavirus.
NAN also reports that COVID-19 has infected over 200,000 persons world-wide, including 21 confirmed cases in Nigeria.
NAFDAC approves chloroquine for clinical trials
Meanwhile, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved chloroquine for clinical trials in tackling COVID-19.
Director-General of the agency, Mojisola Adeyeye, made the disclosure at NAFDAC headquarters in Lagos on Friday, stressing that the Agency was not approving the drug for the treatment of COVID-19 but for clinical trials to find treatment for the virus.
“In the case of Chloroquine, it has been demonstrated in the literature and with clinical research which is still ongoing, that Chloroquine is superior to the Placebo.
“NAFDAC is not approving Chloroquine as a product that has can be used for Coronavirus because there is no submission to us for registration but because it is under clinical trials, NAFDAC approves medicines meant for clinical trials.
“Therefore the medicine is being approved just for the clinical trials. Right now, we have asked one company to make a batch of Chloroquine for the purpose of clinical trials.
“Nobody should use chloroquine as anti-malaria because of the resistance that has been proven to develop in the past after the use of chloroquine in the population,” Adeyeye said.