VA study spot­lights high­er death rate among Covid-19 pa­tients treat­ed with the con­tro­ver­sial drug hy­drox­y­chloro­quine

Just weeks fol­low­ing the FDA’s emer­gency ap­proval of hy­drox­y­chloro­quine af­ter Pres­i­dent Trump re­peat­ed­ly ad­vo­cat­ed its use for Covid-19, new da­ta from a quick VA study high­light­ed an added risk of death with the drug.

Draw­ing on the ret­ro­spec­tive analy­sis of out­comes of 368 male VA pa­tients, in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­clud­ed that pa­tients tak­ing hy­drox­y­chloro­quine — a malar­ia drug — had a 27.8% death rate, well over twice the 11.4% death rate in the group who were not treat­ed with hy­drox­y­chloro­quine. The arm us­ing hy­drox­y­chloro­quine alone had a slight­ly high­er rate of death than the 22.1% who were treat­ed with hy­drox­y­chloro­quine plus azithromycin, but that rel­a­tive­ly small dif­fer­ence could have been trig­gered by oth­er fac­tors

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