EXPLAINED: What Is Hydroxychloroquine? The New Assumed Treatment For COVID-19

he recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of America authorized the emergency use of the hydroxychloroquine a medicine that is commonly used to treat malaria. Emergency use of a drug is not a real approval for a drug and therefore doesn’t prove as a cure.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on February 26, 2020 a medical staff shows at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Institute in Marseille, packets of a Nivaquine, tablets containing chloroquine and Plaqueril, tablets containing hydroxychloroquine, drugs that has shown signs of effectiveness against coronavirus. FILE PIC/AFP

What is Hydroxychloroquine:  With the rise in the number of COVID-19 positive cases reaching one million at the beginning of the month, medical researchers and doctors are in a rush to find a good treatment since there’s no definite cure for it so far. The vaccine is 12 to 18 months away, which puts a lot of pressure on the existing medicine and everything which shows even the slightest sing of working is used.  The recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of America authorized the emergency use of the hydroxychloroquine a medicine that is commonly used to treat malaria. Emergency use of a drug is not a real approval for a drug and therefore doesn’t prove as a cure.

• Hydroxychloroquine is a less toxic version of chloroquine; it is also used by lupus and arthritis patients. It is currently being studied as a treatment against COVID-19 but nothing has been proven yet.
• Hydroxychloroquine and its analog, chloroquine, are derived from quinine.
• It first came from Peru as the Quechua used it as a muscle relaxant. The Quechuas would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing something similar to tonic water.
• In 1934, German scientists created synthetic chloroquine as part of a class of antimalarials. Hydroxychloroquine is the less-toxic version of chloroquine.

With the little evidence of it working the Trump administration is still pushing the import of the malaria drug from India. This sudden jump to source medicine which hasn’t been proven to be an actual treatment has sparked disagreement between politicians and medical researchers/doctors. Even if the drug works, the doctors don’t yet know the right dosage, this comes with thorough research. Hydroxychloroquine has many side effects. In Detroit, 3,000 patients at a hospital will be part of a trial whose results will be tracked in a formal study which can then prove whether this drug works or not.