{"id":256066,"date":"2020-05-26T00:43:16","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T04:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=256066"},"modified":"2020-05-26T09:10:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T13:10:55","slug":"who-temporarily-pauses-trial-of-hydroxychloroquine-says-it-will-evaluate-potential-benefits-harms-from-the-drug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/26\/who-temporarily-pauses-trial-of-hydroxychloroquine-says-it-will-evaluate-potential-benefits-harms-from-the-drug\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO temporarily pauses trial of hydroxychloroquine; says it will evaluate &#8216;potential benefits, harms&#8217; from the drug"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board&quot;-<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrTedros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DrTedros<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WHO\/status\/1264948479480209409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 25, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said they are temporarily suspending clinical tests on hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that United States (U.S) President Donald Trump earlier touted as a &#8220;game-changer&#8221; in the battle against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board,&#8221; Tedros said.<\/p>\n<p>The move came after medical journal The Lancet published an observational study which showed that COVID-19 patients receiving hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were at higher risk of death. The WHO chief said the executive group of the agency&#8217;s Solidarity Trial will be conducting a review and appraisal &#8220;of all evidence globally&#8221; to &#8220;adequately evaluate the potential benefits and harms from this drug.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While the testing of the antimalarial drug is being put on hold, Tedros said the &#8220;other arms of the trial are continuing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The WHO&#8217;s Solidarity Trial was launched to help find a cure for COVID-19. The trial, according to the WHO&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/emergencies\/diseases\/novel-coronavirus-2019\/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov\/solidarity-clinical-trial-for-covid-19-treatments\">website<\/a>, &#8220;will compare four treatment options against standard of care, to assess their relative effectiveness against COVID-19.&#8221; Hydroxychloroquine is one of those treatment options, along with Remdesivir, Lopinavir\/Ritonavir, and Lopinavir\/Ritonavir with Interferon beta-1a.<\/p>\n<p>Trump previously revealed he was taking hydroxychloroquine, claiming that the drug is &#8220;good.&#8221; He clarified that he started taking the medicine not because he was exposed to the virus but because he got \u201ca lot of positive letters\u201d about it.<\/p>\n<p>Trump was using the drug despite the cautions made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who earlier warned that hydroxychloroquine has &#8220;not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/19\/trump-says-hes-taking-hydroxychloroquine-claims-its-good\/\">READ: Trump says he\u2019s taking hydroxychloroquine, claims it\u2019s good<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the U.S. President said in an interview with news program &#8220;Full Measure With Sharyl Attkisson&#8221; that he &#8220;finished&#8221; taking a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And by the way, I&#8217;m still here. To the best of my knowledge, here I am,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the data is &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":256068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-joanna-belle-deala","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256066"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256140,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256066\/revisions\/256140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}