The Ministry of Health will continue to treat COVID-19 with an antimalarial drug, despite WHO recommendations

The Russian Ministry of Health will continue to use the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19, despite the fact that the WHO suspended its trials due to side effects. This is reported on the department's website.

The ministry noted that the antimalarial drug will be included in the next version of temporary recommendations for the treatment, diagnosis and prevention of coronavirus infection. The department says that the results of foreign studies and Russian experience show that it is possible to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to some patients with coronavirus. But due to the fact that there are no registered antiviral drugs in the world indicated for the treatment of COVID-19, the use of drugs is carried out only with the consent of patients, the ministry said.

The Ministry of Health noted that hydroxychloroquine has side effects, one of which is the ability to cause heart rhythm disturbances. In this regard, the guidelines contain instructions for monitoring heart rate in patients receiving the drug. It also cannot be used to treat patients at high risk of developing arrhythmias.

The ministry says it is monitoring the safety of hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic. According to its results, “in Russia, no cases have been identified in which patients taking this medicine died due to heart rhythm disturbances.”

The Lancet published an article stating that the effectiveness of the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 was not confirmed, and the mortality rate of patients taking them was higher. The study showed that the mortality rate in the control group was 9.3%, and the mortality rate in the groups taking chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine ranged from 16 to 23.8%. A significant proportion of deaths in the second group were caused by cardiovascular complications and arrhythmia.

The World Health Organization has temporarily suspended trials of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as drugs for coronavirus patients. The director of the WHO's health emergencies program, Michael Ryan, said the drug was recommended for research and for exceptional use due to possible side effects in severe COVID-19, in particular arrhythmias.