May 27th, 2020 - The SARS-Cov-2 viral pandemic causing COVID-19 disease begs for rapid and innovative treatments. In addition to flu-like respiratory symptoms, acute cardiac manifestations include cardiac injury, shock and arrhythmia. Several pharmacological therapies have been suggested including repurposing of existing drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, sometimes co-administered with azithromyc...

May 27th, 2020 - Background Despite a lack of clinical evidence, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are being administered widely to patients with verified or suspected COVID-19. Both drugs may increase risk of lethal arrhythmias associated with QT interval prolongation. Methods and Results We performed a case series of COVID-19 positive/suspected patients admitted between 2/1/2020 and 4/4/2020 who were treate...

May 27th, 2020 - Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have antiviral effects in vitro against severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). To summarize evidence about the benefits and harms of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for the treatment or prophylaxis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). PubMed (via MEDLINE), EMBASE (via Ovid), Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, bioRxiv, Preprin...

May 26th, 2020 - More than 1.6 million Americans have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 and >10 times that number carry antibodies to it. High-risk patients presenting with progressing symptomatic disease have only hospitalization treatment with its high mortality. An outpatient treatment that prevents hospitalization is desperately needed. Two candidate medications have been widely discussed: remdesivir, and hydro...

May 26th, 2020 - ZURICH (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday promised a swift review of data on hydroxychloroquine, probably by mid-June, after safety concerns prompted the group to suspend the malaria drug's use in a trial on COVID-19 patients. U.S. President Donald Trump and others have pushed hydroxychloroquine as a possible coronavirus treatment, but the WHO on Monday called time in it...

May 26th, 2020 - (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has urged Indonesia, one of the world's biggest advocates of two malaria drugs to treat the coronavirus, to suspend such treatment over safety concerns, a source familiar with the advice told Reuters on Tuesday. Any decision by Indonesia to halt use of the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, in coronavirus patients would mark a major global shift...

May 26th, 2020 - Pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with high intensive care unit (ICU) mortality. We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a Canadian setting. We conducted a retrospective case series of critically ill patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infecti...

May 25th, 2020 - GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) - Massive disruptions to global immunization programs from the COVID-19 pandemic have health experts fearful that much of the developing world will not be able to get a vaccine for the new coronavirus, even once one is ready. U.N. agencies and the GAVI vaccine alliance said on Friday that 80 million children in at least 68 countries may be at risk of diphtheria, measles ...

May 25th, 2020 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Here are the coronavirus stories Medscape's editors around the globe think you need to know about today:  WHO Pauses Hydroxychloroquine Trial  The World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended testing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients because of safety concerns, WHO Direct...

May 25th, 2020 - GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has suspended testing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients due to safety concerns, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday. Hydroxychloroquine has been touted by Donald Trump and others as a possible treatment for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The U.S. President has said he was taking the ...

May 25th, 2020 - Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, often in combination with a second-generation macrolide, are being widely used for treatment of COVID-19, despite no conclusive evidence of their benefit. Although generally safe when used for approved indications such as autoimmune disease or malaria, the safety and benefit of these treatment regimens are poorly evaluated in COVID-19. We did a multinational r...

May 25th, 2020 - Chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: why might they be hazardous?|2020|Funck-Brentano C,Salem JE,|

May 25th, 2020 - Prescription Restrictions on Hydroxychloroquine Among the Largest Florida Pharmacy Chains During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Observational Study.|2020|Hadeler E,Bray F,|

May 25th, 2020 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has treated 1,300 coronavirus patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which a study has tied to an increased risk of death, according to a document released by a Senate Democrat on Friday. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who received the information from the VA in response to questions he submitted on the iss...

May 25th, 2020 - There are no large reported series determining the Covid-19 cancer patient's characteristics. We determine whether differences exist in cumulative incidence and mortality of Covid-19 infection between cancer patients and general population in Madrid. We reviewed 1069 medical records of all cancer patients admitted at Oncology department between Feb 1 and April 7, 2020. We described Covid-19 cum...

May 25th, 2020 - The chloroquine (CQ) and its analogue hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) have been used as frontline drugs for treatment and prophylaxis against all types of human malaria worldwide. Since late December 2019, humans have been under threat due to an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) disease (COVID-19; previously known as 2019-nCoV), since its first reported cases in Wuhan, China [1]. Consequent...

May 24th, 2020 - Although immunosuppressed patients may be more prone to SARS-CoV-2 infection with atypical presentation, long-term immunosuppression therapy may provide some sort of protection for severe clinical complications of COVID-19. The interaction between immunosuppression and new antiviral drugs in the treatment of transplanted patients contracting COVID-19 has not yet been fully investigated. Moreove...

May 24th, 2020 - The purpose of this review is to quantify the landscape of current clinical trials ongoing for therapies in the treatment of COVID-19. A secondary purpose is to examine the relationship between public and scientific interests in potential therapies for COVID-19. A systematic search of clinicaltrials.gov was undertaken on April 22, 2020, to identify all currently registered clinical trials inves...

May 24th, 2020 - The current 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak is continuing to spread rapidly despite all efforts. Patients with rheumatic disease may have higher levels of anxiety due to their disease characteristics and medications. The web-based platforms are widely used sources for gaining medical information. YouTube presents a wide range of medical information, but there are concerns on its quality. Theref...

May 24th, 2020 - Oculo-centric factors may provide a key to understanding invasion success by SARS-CoV-2, a highly contagious, potentially lethal, virus with ocular tropism. Respiratory infection transmission via the eye and lacrimal-nasal pathway elucidated during the 1918 influenza pandemic, remains to be explored in this crisis. The eye and its adnexae represent a large surface area directly exposed to airbo...