Paris (AFP)
Hydroxychloroquine shows "no beneficial effect" for Covid-19 patients, according to officials of the British clinical trial Recovery who announced on Friday the "immediate" cessation of the inclusion of new patients for this treatment .
Recovery, the first major clinical trial to deliver long-awaited results, was one of the only ones not to have suspended its tests on hydroxychloroquine after a controversial Lancet study, since withdrawn, which pointed to the ineffectiveness, even the damaging effect of the controversial molecule.
After an analysis of the initial results, "we concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalized with Covid-19," the researchers said in a statement.
"So we decided to stop recruiting participants for the arm (the part of a trial that relates to a particular treatment, editor's note) hydroxychloroquine from the Recovery trial, with immediate effect," they added.
They said they had decided to make these "preliminary results public because they have important consequences for patient care and public health".
Recovery is a randomized controlled clinical trial (patients chosen by lot), an experimental method considered to be the most solid for testing drugs. It is being conducted in the UK on more than 11,000 patients from 175 hospitals to assess the effectiveness of several treatments for Covid-19. Tests on the other treatment tracks continue.
The hydroxychloroquine part concerned 1,542 patients who received the molecule, compared to 3,132 patients who received standard care.
The researchers conclude that there is no significant difference between the two groups either for the 28-day mortality or for the length of hospital stay.
"It is disappointing that this treatment is ineffective but it allows us to focus on the care and research on more promising drugs," said Peter Horby, the lead investigator.
While this treatment has been widely prescribed in many countries "in the absence of reliable information", "these results should change medical practices around the world and demonstrate the importance of large-scale randomized trials to allow taking decisions about the efficacy and safety of treatments, "added his deputy Martin Landray.
A study published in the medical journal The Lancet on May 22 concluded that hydroxychloroquine was not beneficial to hospitalized Covid-19 patients and could even be harmful. But it was an observational study based on data collected on 96,000 patients worldwide by an American company, Surgisphere, which has since been implicated.
The study led to the suspension of the hydroxychloroquine arm from two major trials: Solidarity under the leadership of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European trial Discovery.
But after the surge of criticism against the Lancet study - which was finally withdrawn Thursday -, the WHO has reversed this week by announcing the resumption of its tests and Discovery plans to do the same.
On Wednesday, another randomized clinical trial conducted in the United States and Canada, in fewer patients than Recovery, concluded that the molecule is ineffective in preventing Covid-19.
© 2020 AFP