Does Hydroxychloroquine help Coronavirus patients to recover?

According to Dr Brendan Carr, the chair of emergency medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System, “We – there’s no way to know the answer until we do the trial.  We all wish that there was a way to sort of get a crystal ball and look into the future, but there’s not.  We have to wait until we see what the evidence shows us.”

In an effort to enlighten the public about the Coronavirus update in New York City,there was  an online briefing with Dr Brendan Carr, Dr Elliot Tenpenny,director of the international health unit for Samaritan’s purse; Ken Isaacs,Vice President,programa and government relations for Samaritan’s Purse on Samaritan’s Purse and Mount Sinai hospital’s emergency field hospital operations in New York Central Park on April 9th.

So,to really know if this hydroxychloroquine
could heal or help hard hit patients of Coronavirus recover from this disease,there must be a lot of testing, studies and trials . Even though there was some early signal that it was effective, those studies were not definitive and were not meant to be definitive.They were what would be called “observational.” 

And to emphasize more on this, Mr Carr said “We know that as of this morning,some of them, the claims have been pulled back because when people went back and did a second look at the data, they weren’t convinced that the interpretation was correct.”

He said there is nothing new about what’s happening here. He wants everyone to know 

that “we in medicine look hopeful, for promising signal, and then we test it.”

Mr Tenpenny agreed with Dr Carr as well.He said the same drugs have been tried in their other field hospital in Italy “And there is no definitive answer; there is no definitive data, unfortunately.”He added.He is hopeful that something good will be coming forward soon,a better answer than now and as everyone knows, people  “that are taking these drugs, some of them are getting better and some of them aren’t, just like the people who are not taking these drugs.” He concluded .

It is worthy to point out that the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been in favor of the use of hydroxychloroquine, even to the objections of many including Luiz Henrique Mandetta,his health minister. There was a recent case in São Paulo, where Dr David Uip who was responsible for the Coronavirus team for the state,got tested positive and probably had hydroxychloroquine applied on him by the doctor in charge and got better. Though,Dr Uip hasn’t confirmed he used hydroxychloroquine, the Brazilian President is making much noise about that and even posted it on his social media account “ Did he (Uip) use hydroxychloroquine or not?”

The Samaritan’s Purse,headed by Franklin Graham,the son of late American preacher, Billy Graham,set up a 68 field bed hospitals in partnership with Mount Sinai hospital in Central Park; right in front of the hospital, between 98 and 99 streets on April 1 to help treat Coronavirus patients. As of today,Samaritan’s Purse has admitted 55 patients with 9 in intensive care units compared to Mount Sinai’s 2000 Covid-19 patients ,450 of which are in the ICU.

As of April 9th, there is a big surge in the number of Coronavirus patients in New York,reaching 159,937 with 7,000 deaths.In the USA as a whole,the number is alarming,462,000 above Spain (153,000),Italy (143,000) and China (82,000) where it all started. The USA deaths is now 16,500. 

By Niyi Fote /Thenews2