COVID-19: US stocks 'Hydroxychloroquine' after it shows positive results on patients

In a bid to ramp up vaccines for coronavirus infections, the United States has started hoarding malaria medicine ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ as it has showcased positive results on some 1,000 patients who are currently being treated in New York. As the number of infections of fatal COVID-19 continues to soar in the US with 164,266 infections and New York is emerging as the new epicentre of the disease, US President Donald Trump told the reporters that Pharmaceutical company, Sandoz has donated nearly 30 million doses of Hydroxychloroquine to the US government. 

Meanwhile, Bayer has reportedly donated one million doses of chloroquine which will also be distributed to states and health officials across the country. Trump also added that Teva Pharmaceuticals is contributing six million doses to hospitals in the US. This comes a day after the US President said malaria medicine with the same chemicals is being monitored on more than a thousand patients of the coronavirus in New York. Trump has previously lauded the vaccine as a "gift of God" in country's fight against the deadly COVID-19 outbreak which has taken at least 3,170 lives in the US.

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Restrictions lifted on India-based company

Just last week,  the regulators in the United States have lifted the restrictions on imports from an Indian pharmaceutical company in a bid to increase the supplies of a malaria drug touted by the US President Donald Trump as “game changer”. According to international reports, in a securities filing, the Mumbai-based Ipca Laboratories Ltd had said that the US Food and Drug Administration “has made an exception to import alert” for three of its facilities. It also allowed the supply of tablets as well as raw materials for making chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulphate.

Currently, the US is facing shortages of both drugs which are widely prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Hospitals have reportedly been stocking up the treatments in the recent weeks after reports by certain doctors outside of the US stated that they were effective against the deadly COVID-19. However, there are not any large-scale clinical trials to support the claims. 

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Trump has said that antimalarial drugs that are currently under investigation to treat the deadly coronavirus could be a “gift from God” despite the warnings by the scientists against over-exaggeration of unproven medicines. While the COVID-19 pandemic is tightening its grip across the world including the US, Trump had said last week that his administration was working to significantly expand access to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, a related compound after the early studies in France and China found that the drugs had helped the patient suffering from the diseases caused by the fatal virus.  

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(With agency inputs)