WHAT NEXT, NOW THAT INDIAN STUDY FINDS HCQ EFFECTIVE?

A malaria drug widely used in India, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), has been found to be highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV2 depending on the dosage used for treatment. A study to this effect was published in Journal of The Association of Physicians of India last week. Media reports say that the prophylactic study was conducted in May to September 2020, at a time when the drug was being prescribed by the Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare as a prophylactic for Covid-19. This is the same drug that the then US President Donald Trump was talking about as a cure for the virus last year, the same drug that India exported to the US after Trump requested for a lift on the ban of exports. Interestingly, hydroxychloroquine is no longer a part of the treatment protocol of India’s health ministry. Along with ivermectin and favipravir, this drug was dropped from the treatment protocol for Covid this Sunday, 6 June. This has to be seen in the context of how “controversial” the word hydroxychloroquine became last year, with questions being raised about it by the face of US’ fightback against Covid, Dr Anthony Fauci himself. Fauci found the drug to be lacking in evidence in its fightback against Covid. In fact, the World Health Organization too did its bit in ensuring that enough aspersions were cast on HCQ, and even as curiosity continued to exist about this anti-malaria drug, it has issued enough statements to say clearly that it does not recommend the use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent Covid-19. Apparently, several studies overaseen by WHO did not find the drug to be an effective prophylactic, that is preventive treatment. However, the Indian study, conducted on 12,000 healthcare workers at risk of getting Covid-19 found it to be just the opposite. So can the Indian study be dismissed just because WHO has debunked HCQ?

According to media reports, the study says that “vaccine has its own limitations, and therefore an alternative strategy of prophylaxis such as HCQ is important, especially in low resource settings”. This can be interpreted as, if vaccinating India’s whole population, or at least a substantial percentage is both time and resource consuming, the option of using HCQ as a preventive medicine should not be ruled out.

The problem with a “new” infection such as Covid-19 is that a proper treatment protocol is yet to evolve and has been changing too often and too fast. Also, the pressure from WHO has been on vaccination and not on prophylaxis or therapeutics, because of which a country such as India has been following WHO guidelines scrupulously, instead of posing some faith in its own doctors and researchers. But as this writer has pointed out earlier as well, the global scientific community has got politicized to the extent that a zoologist, Dr Peter Daszak can, with the help of a group of gain-of-function researchers and a medical journal—all of them with close Chinese links—can shift the narrative on the origin of Covid-19 from a possible lab-made virus to a naturally occurring virus. When scientists are so compromised, perhaps the question that needs to be asked is, what role has been played by interest groups—and there are several, including Big Pharma—in influencing WHO to give greater stress on vaccination than to prevention or therapy.

In this context, it’s not clear how the WHO approved the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, with such speed, even when countries that have used that vaccine, such as Seychelles and UAE have discovered that even two doses are not giving their residents enough immunization. UAE is offering a third booster dose to those who have been given Sinopharm, while Seychelles, apparently the world’s most vaccinated nation, with 60% of its citizens vaccinated, found to its peril that more than 30% of those fully vaccinated have contracted the virus. Several questions have been raised about the Chinese data, which, however, has been accepted by WHO, the same organization which is taking its time—some will say, rightly so, because data has to be fool-proof—to give clearance to India’s homemade Covaxin for emergency use. Is it just a matter of coincidence that Sinopharm, with WHO’s backing is being picked up by many poorer nations? Without getting into the realm of conspiracy theories, there is no doubt that some questions need to be raised about the global scientific community as well as WHO.

Since it’s a matter of life and death, it’s time to start asking the questions.