Opinion: Searching for an effective Covid-19 treatment: promise and peril
In response to the most serious global health threat in a century, the world’s biomedical establishment is unleashing an unprecedented response to the Covid-19 pandemic, rapidly increasing resources aimed at finding safe and effective treatments for the disease. But without careful attention to the pitfalls that can befall biomedical research and regulatory decision-making during a time of crisis, a lot can go wrong.
On March 28, the FDA provided emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine — a medicine approved for treating malaria — for people hospitalized with Covid-19. It also however, told health providers that the optimal dose and duration of treatment were unknown. The authorization did not identify any clinical study on which this approval was based, and while hydroxychloroquine may affect viral replication and might ultimately prove beneficial, its impact on health outcomes among patients with Covid-19 is currently unclear.
Read Original Article: Opinion: Searching for an effective Covid-19 treatment: promise and peril »
