ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a potentially lethal disease. Therefore, an effective therapy is urgently needed. Due to their long known anti-viral effects, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been tested to this purpose in clinical trials in China and France. Based on some favorable clinical results with chloroquine as compared to control in over 100 Chinese patients, chloroquine has been included in the Chinese guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia. However, these data have not yet been presented to the scientific community. Hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with azithromycin has also been reported to be effective in an uncontrolled small French study, which has been highly criticized due to its serious flaws including the major discrepancies between its registered protocol and the published protocol. Nevertheless, its dubious, but hope invoking results attracted enormous media attention, contributed also by high profile public figures. Consequently, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been widely perceived to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19, by not only the general public, but also a significant proportion of doctors and pharmacists. This perception led to the stockpiling and shortage of these drugs causing dire consequences for the rheumatology patients who rely on them.
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