HCQ had clearly not prevented him from coming down with symptomatic COVID-19, and while at Walter Reed he was treated with Regeneron's new polyclonal antibody (along with the commonly used steroid Decadron/dexamethasone).
HCQ was wildly overpromoted early on. It appears that it is probably helpful in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and may also help moderate the course of the disease when taken after symptoms appear, but there was never a speck of evidence that it was some miracle drug that meant there was no need for development of new drugs like the polyclonal antibody.
Honestly, the cheap and plentiful dexamethasone is probably much more effective at preventing symptoms from reaching life-threatening levels, but we were several weeks into a full-blown pandemic before physicians and researchers began to understand that the worst cases of COVID-19 were driven primarily by an out-of-control excessive immune system reaction. Dexamethasone damps down the kind of immune reaction and related inflammation that was killing a lot of COVID patients. And once it was understood that the other big killer was the blood becoming sticky and prone to forming clots, common blood-thinners were added to treatment protocols and made a huge difference.
There are a lot of things that make sense in "3rd World" countries that don't make sense here. I'm not saying it's not useful at all, just that it has become clear that there are other treatments and now the vaccines as preventives, that are much more effective than HCQ. On the other hand, if you're the Indian government and needing to come up with something back in February or March of last year, to provide some degree of emergency protection to your country's massive horde of healthcare workers, many of whom are working in 3rd World conditions, HCQ made sense. It was already widely distributed due to being in common use as an antimalarial, and was already being manufactured in India so easy to ramp up production further.
Mayo Clinic tried it too, in a clinical trial as a preventive for their heathcare workers. It just didn't pan out as hugely effective.
HCQ had clearly not prevented him from coming down with symptomatic COVID-19, and while at Walter Reed he was treated with Regeneron's new polyclonal antibody (along with the commonly used steroid Decadron/dexamethasone).
HCQ was wildly overpromoted early on. It appears that it is probably helpful in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and may also help moderate the course of the disease when taken after symptoms appear, but there was never a speck of evidence that it was some miracle drug that meant there was no need for development of new drugs like the polyclonal antibody.
Honestly, the cheap and plentiful dexamethasone is probably much more effective at preventing symptoms from reaching life-threatening levels, but we were several weeks into a full-blown pandemic before physicians and researchers began to understand that the worst cases of COVID-19 were driven primarily by an out-of-control excessive immune system reaction. Dexamethasone damps down the kind of immune reaction and related inflammation that was killing a lot of COVID patients. And once it was understood that the other big killer was the blood becoming sticky and prone to forming clots, common blood-thinners were added to treatment protocols and made a huge difference.
Africa called... so did the Philippines.. papaue new g.. India.. they want your prof opinion
There are a lot of things that make sense in "3rd World" countries that don't make sense here. I'm not saying it's not useful at all, just that it has become clear that there are other treatments and now the vaccines as preventives, that are much more effective than HCQ. On the other hand, if you're the Indian government and needing to come up with something back in February or March of last year, to provide some degree of emergency protection to your country's massive horde of healthcare workers, many of whom are working in 3rd World conditions, HCQ made sense. It was already widely distributed due to being in common use as an antimalarial, and was already being manufactured in India so easy to ramp up production further.
Mayo Clinic tried it too, in a clinical trial as a preventive for their heathcare workers. It just didn't pan out as hugely effective.