The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is the best coronavirus drug currently available, according to an international poll of thousands of doctors.
Of 6,200 physicians surveyed from 30 countries, the majority (37 per cent) said it was the ‘most effective therapy’ for the virus.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) claims that ‘there is no evidence’ that any medicine ‘can prevent or cure the disease’.
With a spiralling crisis and no cure in sight, doctors across Europe, the US and China have been given licence to prescribe the promising drug to COVID-19 patients.
But the UK is dragging its feet by preventing clinicians from dishing out hydroxychloroquine – a form of chloroquine – until clinical trials are completed.
Of 6,200 physicians surveyed from 30 countries, the majority (37 per cent) said hydroxychloroquine was the ‘most effective therapy’ for the virus
Chloroquine (CQ), sold under the brand name Aralen, and its counterpart hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), known as Plaquenil, are well-established medicines that are also prescribed on the NHS to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
The latest poll, conducted by Sermo – a ‘virtual lounge’ for doctors, found the tablets were most widely used for COVID-19 in Spain, where 72 per cent of physicians said they had prescribed them.
Doctors across the States can now prescribe the medicines to patients who are critically ill with the virus.
They were granted emergency approval by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on March 30.
Doctors in Spain and Italy – the two worst-affected European countries -have already been told they can prescribe the drugs as a last resort.
In the UK, meanwhile, doctors have been instructed not to use the drugs, which can also treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, except in clinical trials. The British Government has banned wholesalers from exporting the drugs to different countries, showing it is protecting the UK supply, but has not yet approved its widespread use because of a lack of evidence.
The drug has been used in China throughout the outbreak and doctors have reported good results, but they have not been published in robust scientific trials.
South Korea was also among one of the first countries to start using it, and there have been reports of doctors in the Netherlands giving it to COVID-19 patients.
In France, a team led by Professor Didier Raoult at a hospital in Marseille reported last week that they had carried out a study of chloroquine on 36 COVID-19 patients.
The World Health Organization has launched a worldwide trial called SOLIDARITY, involving scientists in countries all over the globe, to test which drugs work well on COVID-19 patients – chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are included in this.
Fifty-three per cent of doctors in Italy said they had used the drugs to treat the killer virus, while in China it was 44 per cent.
Just 13 per cent of UK clinicians surveyed said they had prescribed chloroquine to coronavirus patients, presumably through private clinics.
The poll did not state which other drugs were voted most effective in treating COVID-19.
But it did note that the three most commonly prescribed treatments by doctors were analgesics (56 per cent), a type of painkiller, azithromycin (41 per cent), an antibiotic used for bacterial infections, and hydroxychloroquine (33 per cent).
Sermo CEO Peter Kirk described the polling results a ‘treasure trove of global insights for policymakers.’
He added: ‘Physicians should have more of a voice in how we deal with this pandemic and be able to quickly share information with one another and the world.’
Around the world, countries are expanding access to chloroquine, a synthetic form of quinine, which comes from cinchona trees and has been used for centuries to treat malaria.
They work against those conditions by dampening the body’s immune response when it overreacts and could be beneficial for coronavirus patients in the same way.
Doctors across America can now prescribe CQ and HCQ as a last resort for critically ill COVID-19 sufferers.
But it has not been licensed in the UK, where the recorded number of cases reached almost 30,000 today.
Hydroxychloroquine appears to be safe, but its effectiveness for COVID-19 is still unknown.
Both forms of the drug are thought to be among 1,000 medicines being tested against coronavirus in a lab as part of a Queens University Belfast study.
Larger trials have been put in motion, including in the US, where one began in New York this week.
Italy is carrying out a trial on 2,000 people, while scientists are also awaiting the results from bigger trials in China.
A European trial called Discovery will study four experimental therapies, including chloroquine, using 3,200 patients who have been hospitalised from the killer virus in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, Sweden and Luxembourg.
