Malaria Drug Promoted by Trump Did Not Prevent Covid Infections, Study Finds

The first carefully controlled trial of hydroxychloroquine given to people exposed to the coronavirus did not show any benefit. The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine did not prevent Covid-19 in a rigorous study of 821 people who had been exposed to patients infected with the virus, researchers from the University of Minnesota and Canada are reporting on Wednesday.

Over the past few months, President Trump has repeatedly promoted and even taken the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus. A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Canada, however, found that the drug did not prevent Covid-19. Conducted in both the United States and Canada, this was the first large controlled clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, and was also the first to test whether the drug could prevent illness in people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. This type of study, in which patients are picked at random to receive either an experimental treatment or a placebo, is considered the most reliable way to measure the safety and effectiveness of a drug. Early in the pandemic, the drug's use was spurred by anecdotal reports from China and France of patients who seemed to improve and laboratory findings of a possible antiviral effect. The lead author of the study, Dr. Daivd R. Boulware, from the University of Minnesota, concluded that “the take-home message for the general public is that if you’re exposed to someone with Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine is not an effective post-exposure preventive therapy.”