(Reuters) – The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which U.S. President Donald Trump says he has been taking and has urged others to use, was tied to increased risk of death in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to a large study published in the medical journal Lancet.
FILE PHOTO: A nurse shows a Hydroxychloroquine pill, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at Nossa Senhora da Conceicao hospital in Porto Alegre, Brazil, April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Diego Vara
In the study here that looked at over 96,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, those treated with hydroxychloroquine or the related chloroquine had higher risk of death than patients who were not given the medicines.
The authors said they could not confirm whether taking the drug resulted in any benefit in coronavirus patients.
“Urgent confirmation from randomized clinical trials is needed,” they wrote. This study was not a placebo-controlled trial.
Hospitalized patients tend to h