Hydroxychloroquine, responsible for some 17,000 premature deaths in six countries

The hydroxychloroquine which was prescribed in patients hospitalized with covid during the first wave of virusdespite the low level of evidence, could have caused almost 17,000 premature deaths in six countries analyzed in a scientific study, about 2,000 in the case of Spain.

This is revealed by a study published today in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, in which a team of French researchers has estimated the premature mortality associated with this treatment in six countries: Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey and the United States.

During the first wave of covid, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) treatment was used “unauthorized despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits”the authors emphasize.

The objective of the researchers has been to calculate the number of deaths attributable to this treatment in the countries where it was applied to hospitalized patients during the first two or three months of the pandemic.

The authors have based their estimates on the data available from the six mentioned countries, taking into account the number of covid patients hospitalized in the first wave, patients to whom the treatment was administered, and people whose death is attributable to it, among others.

At the time the drug was administered, Spain had 104,715 people hospitalized for covid, of which 87,437 received this treatment, and 1,895 would have died as a result of it (with an estimated margin of variation of this last figure of between 1,475 and 2,094).

In the case of Belgium, of 19,644 hospitalized, 10,018 received it and 240 would have died from it; In France, out of 99,997, 15,600 received it and 199 died; In Italy, 89,895 were administered to 72,635 and 1,822 died (with a margin of 1,170-2,063); in Turkey, 21,417 were administered to 15,656 and 95 of them died (range 92-128); and in the United States of 888,037 they gave it to 551,471 and 12,739 would have died (3,244- 15,570).

In the opinion of the researchers, these findings illustrate the danger of using drugs with a low level of evidence for the management of future pandemics.