Skip to main content

Chloroquine Is Not A Cure To COVID-19, Please Return Them To The Stores By Churchill Okonkwo

April 27, 2020

As Nigeria plans to go into a national lockdown for two weeks, I want Nigerians to understand that even though this will bring untold hardship to millions, it is a necessary step. It is needed to minimize exposure and possibly halt the rising number of positive cases of COVID-19. If we fail, the virus will surge, many more Nigerians will fall ill, and there will be more deaths.

I want to make certain I’m not misinterpreted on this opening statement: The cure of COVID-19 is not in Chloroquine. The best-proven prescription, at least for now, is reducing crowds and social distancing. That was simply why all along, the head of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, has refused to back the use of chloroquine as a drug for the treatment of COVID-19.

As a matter of fact, on March 20, at the White House press briefing, Mr. Fauci in a response to whether hydroxychloroquine could be effective in treating COVID-19 answered with an emphatic “no”.

Despite this, Nigerians rushed to pharmacy and “chemist” stores and stockpiled chloroquine, in the process, putting the lives of malaria and lupus patients at risk. Ever since, Nigeria has been dealing with a shortage of chloroquine, the drug that has been keeping millions of malaria patients in Nigerians alive for more than four decades. While chloroquine is no longer commonly used to treat malaria, some pharmacies still stock it for patients who are resistant to other anti-malarial drugs. 

Image

In addition to Anthony Fauci, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, had stated that “using untested drugs without the right evidence could raise false hope and even do more harm than good.” Anthony Fauci as a medical professional who has faced HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, described his job in relation to the drug for COVID-19 as ultimately proving without a doubt that a drug is not only safe but that it works.

A recent study of 368 United States Veterans Affairs patients showed that the use of hydroxychloroquine was associated with an increased risk of death. So, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, taken together is not the biggest game-changer in the history of medicine as was being promoted. Meanwhile, patients who truly need these medications for serious conditions like lupus are going without cheap treatment in Nigeria and the United States.

Here is a little background on the malaria drug chloroquine: it was developed from quinine, an alkaloid found in the bark of the cinchona tree. According to the United States National Institutes of Health, quinine is the “the most serendipitous medical discovery of the 17th century,” but its side effects—diarrhea, vomiting, partial deafness, and blindness—could be devastating. A less toxic derivative of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, was developed in the 1940s. Doctors and pharmacists call it HCQ.

Against malaria, chloroquine, which is taken as pills, essentially defends red blood cells against a parasite that is transmitted by mosquito bite. But HCQ can also cause cardiac arrest, low blood pressure, hypoglycemia, seizures, and an altered mental state.

In the past couple of weeks, the hype and hope around the use of Chloroquine as the “magic” drug for COVID-19 have all but disappeared. On Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a frequent guest on Fox News television network in the United States, one of the proponents of quinine spoke about the United States Veterans Affairs study that showed no clear positive benefit of treating the coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine.

Dr. Oz, surprisingly, or should I say inevitably, conceded that the fact of the matter is, we don’t know if chloroquine is working. He then dropped the bomb that Americans should better wait for a randomized trial Dr. Fauci has been asking for.

Thou chloroquine is being phased out, there are still millions of Nigerians who, still depend on chloroquine to treat malaria and lupus. With this new development. I am urging Nigerians that rushed and bought all the chloroquine brands in Nigeria to, please, return them to the drug stores. The life of a poor pregnant woman may depend on it.

Whether Nigerians who have stockpiled chloroquine as a cure to COVID-19 knows it or not, it is very important to remind them that it can have very serious psychiatric side effects. Doctors have known for decades that chloroquine and related medications like hydroxychloroquine can cause psychiatric side effects even after just one dose. Most of us can remember some severe symptoms like paranoia and hallucinations on those tough nights after taking chloroquine for malaria treatment.

Nigerians should, therefore, not resort to quackery nor should we show scorn for rigorous science, even amid the worst pandemic in a century. During previous pandemics, like the Spanish flu of 1918-19, cases of psychosis and hallucinations increased significantly. Knowing that chloroquine has notable psychiatric side effects and cardiac effects, it is advisable that people should not just take it without fear of consequence.

On a final note, chloroquine has been tested, thou not extensively, for coronavirus and the result shows that it is not a cure to COVID-19. So, please, forget about the unfounded pronouncements that chloroquine is the magic drug for the coronavirus epidemic. It is important to, again, emphasize this point: chloroquine is not harmless medications. They could have serious consequences — like death.

Chloroquine has been in short supply across Nigeria since March. We don’t want fake drug merchants to flood the Nigerian market with adulterated quinine products that will endanger the lives of poor pregnant women across Nigeria. Also, if we do not quickly reverse the false belief that chloroquine is a cure to COVID-19: sick people may start or continue treating their coronavirus symptoms at home with an unproven drug.

As Nigeria plans to go into a national lockdown for two weeks, I want Nigerians to understand that even though this will bring untold hardship to millions, it is a necessary step. It is needed to minimize exposure and possibly halt the rising number of positive cases of COVID-19. If we fail, the virus will surge, many more Nigerians will fall ill, and there will be more deaths.

So, now that you know that chloroquine is not a cure to COVID-19, save some lives by returning the stockpile of quinine drugs in your house so that malaria and lupus patients can have access to cheap medication. Also, help your poor neighbors with food items and stay home during the lockdown.

Together, we can.

Churchill Okonkwo, Ph.D.

On Twitter @Churchillnnobi