People who have taken an anti-malarial treatment which Donald Trump According to a new scientific study, as a cure for Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic and waning days of his presidency, 11% were more likely to die from the virus.
The study’s authors – who published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy – also estimated that nearly 17,000 people in six different countries, including the US, died after contracting Covid-19 and taking the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine.
Doctors who prescribed hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 at the height of activity restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus did so off-label and without evidence of any clinical benefit, according to the authors of the new study noted. The study’s conclusions “illustrate the danger of repurposing drugs with low-level evidence for the management of future pandemics,” the authors added.
A meta-analysis of randomized trials produced the findings in the study released by Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, a 67-year-old journal DM Townsend from the Medical University of South Carolina.
The study’s authors said they used public databases to determine the number of Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized during the early days of the pandemic. They said they then systematically reviewed 44 cohort studies to calculate that there was an 11% increase in mortality associated with cases involving the use of hydroxychloroquine, along with approximately 16,990 in-hospital deaths in the US, Belgium , France, Italy, Spain and Turkey.
Trump first touted hydroxychloroquine as a miracle drug that could cure Covid-19 in March 2020, while speaking out against shutdowns, saying they would ruin the US economy.
His comments on anti-malarial medication led to a boom in prescriptions for the drug. The Food and Drug Administration – which did not approve the first Covid-19 vaccine until December 2020 – was forced to warn that hydroxychloroquine could cause irregular heartbeats and other heart problems.
And the regulatory agency also clarified that the medication is only approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
The then-president later dismissed an early study that showed hydroxychloroquine was an ineffective Covid-19 treatment as a “Trump enemy statement”.
“They gave it to people who were … almost dead,” Trump said at one point when the White House claimed he himself was taking the medication prophylactically.
Trump finally tested positive for Covid-19 on 26 September 2020 and was admitted to hospital within days. He recovered after doctors treated him with a new antibody cocktail that was nearly impossible for the general public to access.
Weeks later, Trump lost his bid for a second term in the Oval Office Joe Biden. He now faces 91 pending criminal charges for attempting to undermine his election defeat, illegally keeping government secrets and hush money payments to an adult film actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with him.
Trump nevertheless leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and polls have suggested a rematch with Biden would be competitive.
Before the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped keeping track in May, more than 1.1 million people had died from Covid-19 in the US, and nearly 105 million cases had been reported, according to officials.
