Plaquenil removed from the medical guideline
By Khatia Bzhalava
Thursday, May 28
According to the research of the World Health Organisation, the Drug called Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine), which was originally used to prevent and treat malaria, but was actively used against the novel coronavirus, raises the risk of mortality by 18%. As Tedros Adhanom, Director-general of the World Health Organisation said, the medical newspaper The Lancet shared the statistics which showed that the risk of death caused by heart problems was more common in COVID-infected patients, who were being treated with Plaquenil.
Director-General of the Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Center, Tbilisi, Tengiz Tsertsvadze explained that in Georgia, there have not been any severe complications detected due to the use of Plaquenil, however, this does not mean that the medicine might not reveal negative side-effects in further future experience. As he stated, since Georgia works with the same design as the WHO, Hydroxychloroquine is temporarily removed from the medical guidelines in Georgia, until WHO presents its final research.
As Tsertsvadze noted, the currently favoured drug Remdesivir, which is considered as the most optimal medication, is also known to have many side-effects. He marks that it has not yet been said that Plaquenil was the reason for any deaths, but until WHO studies how severe the complications caused by the drug were, the medicine remains removed from the guideline.
Tsertsvadze reported to the media that Plaquenil was only used only for treating patients in critical conditions.
