Researchers have shown that the famous anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was ineffective for Covid-19 patients with early and mild symptoms.

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In a randomised trial, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the research team from the University of Minnesota (US) found that HCQ did not substantially reduce symptom severity in Covid-19 patients. Currently, there are no effective treatments for Covid-19. The majority of previous clinical studies investigating therapies for Covid-19 were small in size and examined hospitalised patients with moderate to severe disease.

For this study, the research team hypothesised that starting hydroxychloroquine within the first few days of symptoms could alter the course of Covid-19 by reducing symptom severity, symptom duration, and preventing hospitalisations. They randomly assigned symptomatic, non-hospitalised adults with lab-confirmed or probable Covid-19 to either oral HCQ 800 mg once, followed by 600 mg in 6-8 hours, then 600mg daily for four more days, or masked placebo.