Chloroquine not yet confirmed treatment for coronavirus – FG

The Federal Government, on Friday, said that Chloroquine Phosphate has not been confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the treatment of Coronavirus.

According to the government, preliminary phased clinical trials using Chloroquine and Hydroxyl-Chloroquine were still ongoing and the early findings needed to be validated with more trials before Chloroquine could be considered a treatment of choice.

It, however, urged Nigerians to be careful in pushing out information, lest people start pilling up Chloroquine or start taking it without prescription.

Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, who disclosed this while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja, said: “We also have our own protocol, in terms of management, it is one of the drugs being considered of being effective for possibly fighting the coronavirus, but we have to wait for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which is our primary contact with the WHO. It is better to wait”.

Corroborating the minister’s stance, the Director Research and Planning at the NCDC, Dr. Chinwe Lucia, said: “For Chloroquine, it is still work in progress, as a lot of research is going on. “In China, they are having preliminary phased clinical trials using Chloroquine and Hydroxyl-Chloroquine. They have enrolled about 100 patients and have administered Chloroquine to them. It was found that the Chloroquine Phosphate was superior to the controlled treatment in inhibiting the interpretation of pneumonia that the patients had and improving lung imaging.

“By the time they did X-ray, they discovered that those on Chloroquine had better lung imaging with findings than those on the controlled therapy and that there was the promotion of the virus-negative conversion rate. “These are still early findings that need to be validated with more trials before we can say Chloroquine is the treatment of choice. There are other treatment regimens that are being considered.”

Mamora said Nigeria was developing a stockpile of medical supplies to be used in the event of any outbreak COVID-19, which is a serious public health emergency of international concern, adding that the country’s capacity for testing has been enhanced with three laboratories- National Reference Laboratory in Abuja, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Edo state.