UK puts malaria drug trial on hold

Britain's drug regulator has ordered Oxford University to pause a trial of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 amid safety concerns about the medication.

French health authorities also ceased the use of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 patients last week after the World Health Organization paused its own international trial for the drug last Monday.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency took the decision just six days into the Oxford trial, which is called the Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine Prevention of Coronavirus Disease, or COPCOV, and is being conducted in collaboration with the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, or MORU, in Thailand.

"The COPCOV trial, led by the University of Oxford and Wellcome-supported MORU in Bangkok, has been paused," the agency said. "All hydroxychloroquine trials in COVID-19 remain under close review."

The WHO suspended its so-called Solidarity Trial following a study published recently in the medical journal The Lancet, which found that hydroxychloroquine provided no benefit for treatment of the virus and was associated with higher mortality and increased frequency of irregular heartbeats among COVID-19 patients.

"In light of recent publications of evidence on the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 patients, the executive group of the Solidarity Trial decided to implement a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the trial as a precaution while the safety data is being reviewed," the WHO said.

The WHO said its review on hydroxychloroquine is continuing, and that a final decision on its harm or lack of benefit is expected in about two weeks.

Hydroxychloroquine is a drug best known for its use to treat and prevent malaria, and is used to treat some autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Once promising results

During the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have studied a multitude of existing drugs to see if they may be effective against COVID-19. In early March test tube experiments by researchers in China and some early trials on COVID-19 patients in France showed promising results for hydroxychloroquine.

The medication entered mainstream headlines on March 19 when United States President Donald Trump said the US Food and Drug Administration was looking to approve its use as a treatment for COVID-19. Trump said he had been taking hydroxychloroquine to defend against the novel coronavirus.

The drug is now being used to treat the disease in hospitals in several countries, though there have been limited studies into the medication as a COVID-19 treatment, and no conclusive evidence has emerged regarding its efficacy.

The Lancet study casting serious doubts over the benefits of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients came out on May 22.

The study, conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School, the University of Utah and the University Hospital Zurich, looked at a little more than 96,000 COVID-19 patients in 671 hospitals in six countries.