July 29, 2020 – Problems with the analysis in “Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin and Combination in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19” “In this observational study the patients were deliberately assigned to the treatment protocols based on their underlying medical conditions. This introduces a bias into the study, and as with all observational studies, there is the hope that the subsequent adjustments, based on a regression model in this instance, will compensate for this bias. This hope is not justified. To understand why it is necessary to examine the results for individual variables in the regression model and judge whether they are plausible. If they are not plausible then you can conclude that the regression model is almost certainly flawed.”
July 01, 2020 – Treatment with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and combination in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 “In this multi-hospital assessment, when controlling for COVID-19 risk factors, treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and in combination with azithromycin was associated with reduction in COVID-19 associated mortality. Prospective trials are needed to examine this impact.”
July 1, 2020 – Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial “At day 6 post-inclusion, 100% of patients treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were virologically cured compared to 57.1% of patients treated with hydroxychloroquine only, and 12.5% in the control group (p<0.001). These results are summarized in Fig. 1, Fig. 2. Drug effect was significantly higher in patients with symptoms of URTI and LRTI, as compared to asymptomatic patients with p<0.05 (data not shown).
June 5, 2020 – Retraction—Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis “Our independent peer reviewers informed us that Surgisphere would not transfer the full dataset, client contracts, and the full ISO audit report to their servers for analysis as such transfer would violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements. As such, our reviewers were not able to conduct an independent and private peer review and therefore notified us of their withdrawal from the peer-review process.”
May-June 2020 – Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19 with or without diabetes: A systematic search and a narrative review with a special reference to India and other developing countries “We have summarized current consideration and proposed line of management in Table 3. The low cost of chloroquine and HCQ could also be an effective strategy to counter COVID-19 (especially in patients with diabetes and other co-morbidities in whom mortality is high) in resource constrained and COVID-19 overburdened heath care systems in middle- and low-income counties including India.
April 15, 2020 – Empirical treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for suspected cases of COVID-19 followed-up by telemedicine (pdf) “According to our study, empirical treatment with hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin for suspected cases of COVID-19 infection reduces the need for hospitalization.”
April 13 2020 – A systematic review of the prophylactic role of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐19) “According to our study, empirical treatment with hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin for suspected cases of COVID-19 infection reduces the need for hospitalization.”
March 20, 2020 – Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial full text) “Twenty cases were treated in this study and showed a significant reduction of the viral carriage at D6-post inclusion compared to controls, and much lower average carrying duration than reported of untreated patients in the literature. Azithromycin added to hydroxychloroquine was significantly more efficient for virus elimination.”
March 20, 2020 – COVID-19: a recommendation to examine the effect of hydroxychloroquine in preventing infection and progression “In summary, we propose that HCQ could serve as a better therapeutic approach than CQ for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. There are three major reasons for this: (i) HCQ is likely to attenuate the severe progression of COVID-19 through inhibiting the cytokine storm by reducing CD154 expression in T cells; (ii) HCQ may confer a similar antiviral effect at both pre- and post- infection stages, as found with CQ; (iii) HCQ has fewer side effects, is safe in pregnancy and is cheaper and more highly available in China”
March 18, 2020 – Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro “Clinical investigation found that high concentration of cytokines were detected in the plasma of critically ill patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, suggesting that cytokine storm was associated with disease severity. Other than its direct antiviral activity, HCQ is a safe and successful anti-inflammatory agent that has been used extensively in autoimmune diseases and can significantly decrease the production of cytokines and, in particular, pro-inflammatory factors. Therefore, in COVID-19 patients, HCQ may also contribute to attenuating the inflammatory response. In conclusion, our results show that HCQ can efficiently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro.