Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus, emerged in December 2019, has spread rapidly, with cases now confirmed in multiple countries. As of February 16, 2020, the virus has caused 70,548 infections and 1,770 deaths in mainland China and 413 infections in Japan (1). A great deal of effort has been made to find effective drugs against the virus in China (2). On February 17, 2020, the State Council of China held a news briefing indicating that chloroquine phosphate, an old drug for treatment of malaria, had demonstrated marked efficacy and acceptable safety in treating COVID-19 associated pneumonia in multicenter clinical trials conducted in China (3). In the early in vitro studies, chloroquine was found to block COVID-19 infection at low-micromolar concentration, with a half-maximal effective concentration (EC 50) of 1.13 μM and a half-cytotoxic concentration (CC 50) greater than 100 μM (4). A number of subsequent clinical trials (ChiCTR2000029939,

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“…Chloroquine phosphate has been shown to have some efficacy against COVID-19 associated pneumonia in multicenter clinical trials conducted in China. 21…”

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“…84,85 Results from a single study of over 100 COVID-19 patients found chloroquine was superior to control in reducing pneumonia exacerbation, improving imaging findings and virus-negative conversion, and shortening the course of the disease. 86 A study evaluating lopinavir-ritonavir found no improvement in patient survival or differences in detectable viral RNA. 87 Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin are also under study.…”

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“…A response has come from China to the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged in December 2019 in this country. Indeed, following the very recent publication of results showing the in vitro activity of chloroquine against SARS-CoV-2 [3], data have been reported on the efficacy of this drug in patients with SARS-CoV-2-related pneumonia (named COVID-19) at different levels of severity [4,5]. Indeed, following the in vitro results, 20 clinical studies were launched in several Chinese hospitals.…”