Coronavirus: Nine things to know about renewed interest in chloroquine

There is renewed interest in chloroquine now that a number of doctors have asserted that it has beneficial effects on COVID-19 patients. However, the scientific community is still divided over such claims.

Here is what you need to now about chloroquine.

Blockbuster drug
A blockbuster drug for many years now for the prevention and treatment of malaria, chloroquine is also used in rheumatology and dermatology. A product of German, American and French pharmaceutical industry research conducted in the 1930s and 1940s, the drug became available in France in 1949. It was marketed alone under the name Nivaquine and in combination with proguanil hydrochloride under the name Savarine.

What is hydroxychloroquine?
Hydroxychloroquine is a molecule derived from chloroquine. It is used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and certain forms of lupus but is not indicated as an antimalarial drug in France. Marketed under the name Plaquenil, it has an anti-inflammatory effect, which Nivaquine does not.

Fast-acting
Rapidly absorbed, chloroquine is distributed to all tissues in the body and can thus treat any infected organs, whether the liver or the lungs. It does not act directly on the virus, but rather on “sick” cells by reducing their infectious capacity.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on February 26, 2020, medical staff shows o at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Institute in Marseille, packets of a Nivaquine, tablets containing chloroquine and Plaqueril, tablets containing hydroxychloroquine, drugs that has shown signs of effectiveness against coronavirus. – On March 29, 2020,a limited emergency-use authorization for two antimalarial drugs touted as game-changers by President Donald Trump has been issued by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat coronavirus patients. In a statement published Sunday, the US Department of Health and Human Services detailed recent donations of medicine to a national stockpile — including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, both being investigated as potential COVID-19 treatments. (Photo by GERARD JULIEN / AFP)

Controversies
Professor Raoult’s critics are concerned that the molecule has been tested on too few patients for his observations to be conclusive and that he did not follow the scientific protocol typically used in clinical trials to eliminate the risk of bias in the interpretation of results. Most scientists think that more time is needed before the treatment can be determined to be safe and effective. These are not the only concerns, as chloroquine reportedly causes a number of side effects and is behind quite a few incidences of heart attacks. Known as Discovery, a trial coordinated by the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale – INSERM) is underway and aims to evaluate the effectiveness of four drugs, including chloroquine, on more than 300 European patients.

Trump card: cheap
On March 24, Morocco also decided to introduce chloroquine (Nivaquine) and hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) as a treatment for patients with confirmed COVID-19 infections. If the studies currently being conducted end up confirming its efficacy, Africa will have a clear advantage in the fight against the coronavirus due to the country’s extensive familiarity with chloroquine.

Obsolescence
Although it was one of the most widely prescribed antimalarial drugs up until the 1980s, chloroquine is less and less recommended today because of the development of resistant strains, first in Asia and later in Africa and the Americas.

It has become obsolete, with artemisinin-based treatments now favoured.

Toxic
In Africa, chloroquine has always had the reputation – wrongly, according to its advocates – of being especially toxic. It is true that it was often used in suicides in the 1970s. In addition, it has known toxic effects on the retina, particularly when it is taken long term.