The Food & Drug Administration has authorized the use of two drugs championed by President Donald Trump as a means to fight coronavirus.
Emergency Authorization Given
On Sunday night the FDA issued an emergency authorization for the use of two anti-malaria drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. Researchers in the United States have begun testing the drugs in some states, like New York, but the drug will now be more widely available.
The FDA has allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible,” the department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today accepted 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate donated by Sandoz, the Novartis generics and biosimilars division, and one million doses of chloroquine phosphate donated by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, for possible use in treating patients hospitalized with COVID-19 or for use in clinical trials. These and other companies may donate additional doses, and companies have ramped up production to provide additional supplies of the medication to the commercial market,” it said.
This is promising news for those suffering from the pandemic. The medication has not been proven to be effective in clinical trials in the United States, but the early results have been encouraging as have the results from tests done overseas.
“President Trump is taking every possible step to protect Americans from the coronavirus and provide them with hope,” Alex Azar, the Health And Human Services secretary said.“Scientists in America and around the world have identified multiple potential therapeutics for COVID-19, including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
“The President’s bold leadership and the hard work of FDA and HHS’s Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response have succeeded in securing this large donation of medicine. We’ll continue working around the clock to get American patients access to therapeutics that may help them battle COVID-19, while building the evidence to evaluate which options are effective,” he said.
President Trump Champions The Drugs
The president has spoken highly of the use of these drugs for weeks. But at that time there was not enough evidence via clinical rials to support its use.
“HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents) be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST, and GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” the president said in a tweet last week.
The president spoke about the drugs during a press conference a week before the tweet. He said that the drugs have been approved for a long time for other uses so they won’t “kill anybody” if they did not work.
“Now, a drug called chloroquine — and some people would add to it Hydroxychloroquine. So chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug. It is also a drug used for strong arthritis. If somebody has pretty serious arthritis, also uses this in a somewhat different form. But it is known as a malaria drug, and it’s been around for a long time and it’s very powerful. But the nice part is, it’s been around for a long time, so we know that if it — if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody,” he said.
It is too soon to know if the drug is a game changer as some have stated. But the authorization by the FDA is a major step in finding out if these drugs are as effective as the president believes.
If they are it would go a long way towards getting life back to normal in the United States.
* This article was originally published here
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