The National Medicines Safety Agency fears that some Covid-19 patients will suffer from serious side effects after taking chloroquine without medical advice and that those who follow this treatment for other pathologies may no longer have it.
- Controversy between doctors over prescribing chloroquine to treat Covid-19 patients
- Fatal cases of self-medication with chloroquine have been recorded in France
It is a hope in the treatment of Covid-19: chloroquine, used to treat malaria, could be effective in the fight against this new virus. This is indicated by tests conducted by Professor Didier Raoult. In France, some doctors have started to use it, but these uses must be limited to the hospital environment. The National Medicines Agency (ANSM) recalls this in a communicatedpublished Monday, March 30.
Hospital use only
The agency recalls that nothing proves with certainty that the drug is effective in a preventive way. The only authorized uses today concern clinical trials and, exceptionally, hospitalized patients. “Under no circumstances should these drugs be used either for self-medication, or on prescription from a city doctor, or in self-prescription by a doctor for himself for the treatment of Covid-19”, specifies the text. . In New Aquitaine, several incidents have been recorded in recent days by the Regional Health Agency. People with symptoms of Covid-19 have taken chloroquine without medical advice. Some have suffered serious side effects. “We observed a number of situations in which there had been accidents, either discomfort or death in people taking this drug”, explains Dominique Martin, the director of the ANSM to France Info. Investigations are ongoing.
Risks of shortage
The second concern of the ANSM concerns patients who need hydroxychloroquine on a daily basis. The substance helps treat lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease and rheumatoid arthritis. However, sales of drugs containing them have doubled in city medicine according to the agency. “Today, we have sufficient stocks of Plaquenil for patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, specifies Dominique Martin. But if people take massive Plaquenil in the city, we will find ourselves in difficulty.” Local stock-outs have already been observed, which meant that patients had to wait a few days before being able to collect their treatment. “The risk is that if it continues, if people continue to use Plaquenil on a massive scale, we will have global tension, and the patients for whom this product is normally intended will not have access to their treatment”, warns the director of the ANSM. He calls for “responsible citizenship”.
⚠️ #Hydroxychloroquine Where #chloroquine : DO NOT USE THEM alone without proper medical supervision
In case of misuse these drugs are toxic and can be responsible for serious heart problems#self-medication #Covid19
???? https://t.co/FzYOKqMzwJ pic.twitter.com/vC9e7tiwRT—ANSM (@ansm) March 30, 2020
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