Covid: WHO, hydroxychloroquine should not be used for prevention

(ANSA) - ROME, 02 MAR - The World Health Organization (WHO) expresses a "strong recommendation against the preventive use of hydroxychloroquine for individuals who do not have Covid-19".

This is what we read in the first living Guideline, or guideline continuously updated, published in the British medical journal (BMJ), created by an international group of experts.

    "There is widespread interest - they write - in the fact that pharmacological interventions can be used for the prevention of Covid-19, but there is uncertainty about which drugs, if any, are effective". Hence the need to investigate in order to provide doctors and administrators with updated opinions based on scientific evidence. The strong recommendation against the preventive use of hydroxychloroquine comes from a systematic review based on 6 studies involving 6,059 participants who found that this antimalarial drug, also indicated for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, had little or no effect on mortality and hospitalization from Covid-19. It also resulted in little or no effect on Sars-CoV-2 infection and possibly an increase in adverse events leading to discontinuation of use in several patients. The panel therefore believes that "this drug is no longer a research priority and that resources should rather be geared towards evaluating other more promising drugs to prevent Covid-19". The subsequent updates of the living Guideline, developed with the support of the Magic Evidence Ecosystem Foundation, will concern other drugs under investigation for their role in the prevention of Covid-19. (HANDLE).