Does pandemic justify the use of Hydroxychloroquine for treatment and prevention of COVID‐19 in India?

Tripathy, Jaya Prasad

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), recommended the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a prophylactic against COVID‐19 among health care workers and asymptomatic contacts of laboratory confirmed cases of COVID. This is widely criticised as a hastily taken step with political inclination and minimal evidence backing. In the current scenario, where there is mass fear against COVID‐19, this recommendation has made the people to believe that it will kill the viruses. This has important public health implications which are discussed below. Better communication should have been planned to ensure everyone does not go out and buy it. However, as a nation of 1.3 billion, we need to capitalize on this opportunity to generate data and valuable evidence on the use of HCQ to beat this pandemic. All health care workers taking this drug should volunteer themselves to be part of a trial/observational study and get registered online to generate useful data related to its safety and efficacy and guide future recommendations. The other risk group which includes asymptomatic contacts of laboratory confirmed COVID‐19 patients are under surveillance by the state and local health authorities and could also be roped into this study to generate robust evidence. Of course, pandemic does not just justify the use of HCQ, but pandemic is the time to innovate, think out of box and generate evidence to prove the same so that we can lives. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.