Last year, when Trump was still running the Oval Office, he announced that he had secured large amounts of an antimalarial drug called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) because he believed that it was an effective treatment for coronavirus. He declared in April 2020:
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We bought a tremendous amount of hydroxychloroquine, which I think is, you know, it's a great malaria drug.
It's worked unbelievably, it's a powerful drug on malaria. And there are signs that it works on [coronavirus], some very strong signs.
A month later, he claimed that he was taking the medication himself—even though there was no real data proving that HCQ did in fact help with COVID. He said:
I'm taking it, hydroxychloroquine. Right now, yeah. Couple of weeks ago, I started taking it. Cause I think it's good, I've heard a lot of good stories.
In 2020, Trump’s claims about HCQ were all based on little to no scientific evidence and many medical professionals, including the World Health Organisation, warned people against using this unproven COVID drug. But now, two separate studies have been finding that HCQ does have the potential to both increase COVID survival rates and prevent infection.
American study
Scientists at the St. Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey have revealed that HCQ is a viable and effective drug for the virus. They gave 255 patients a mixture of two drugs, HCQ and AZM—an antibiotic that is used for bacterial infections and the authors revealed:
We found that when the cumulative doses of two drugs, HCQ and AZM, were above a certain level, [COVID] patients had a survival rate 2.9 times the other patients.
Halfway across the world, another team was witnessing promising results with HCQ as well.
Indian study
A recent study published in the Journal of The Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) has also found that the drug could prevent infection depending on the dosesprescribed to the patients. Those who were taking HCQ for more than six weeks recorded a prevention rate of 72%. The study said:
[W]hen adjusted for other risk factors, HCQ dose as per government recommendations, 2-3, 4-5, 6 or more weeks reduced the probability of Covid positivity by 34 per cent, 48 per cent and 72 per cent.
