Efficacy and safety evaluation of chloroquine treatment in patients with COVID-19

Authors

  • Wenjie Sun

Abstract

Background There is no certified effective therapeutic against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) currently. Chloroquine has been shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro and used to treat pneumonia causing by COVID-19. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of co-treatment with chloroquine and antiviral agents (vs. antiviral agents alone) in patients with COVID-19 from multiple hospitals in Zhejiang, China.
Methods This retrospective study included 251 patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 who were grouped and analyzed based on whether they were administered the antiviral drugs: lopinavir/ritonavir, interferon alpha-2b, and arbidol alone (control group) or in combination with chloroquine (treatment group). The main primary outcome was SARS-CoV-2 RNA conversion time.
Results A total of 141 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were finally included in this study. There was no significant difference in conversion time of SARS-CoV-2 RNA between the chloroquine and no chloroquine groups in the overall and subgroup analyses (ps > 0.05). There were no significant differences in temperature recovery, computed tomography (CT) absorption ratio, and blood routine dynamics between the two groups (ps > 0.05). Although more adverse events were found in the chloroquine group, no severe adverse events were observed.
Conclusions Our study showed no significant acceleration in viral RNA clearance or clinical outcome improvement after the addition of chloroquine adding to the treatment of COVID-19. No serious safety events were observed in patients who received chloroquine.

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Published

2024-12-12

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 3 (2024): Article

Section

Medical

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