What is chloroquine? Why not arbitrarily use it to prevent Covid-19

The whole world is in a difficult situation due to the Covid 19 virus, economic, social, educational and medical problems... are facing a lot of great obstacles. Up to now, the treatment of covid-19 has always been a matter of urgent attention.

Chloroquine is an ingredient in the 4-aminoquinoline group of drugs, first discovered in 1934 by Hans Andersag and colleagues at Bayer Laboratories. It is on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines. After many studies and clinical experiments, in 1947, chloroquine was officially put into use to prevent malaria. When malaria parasites enter the body, they live and reproduce in red blood cells or in the liver. And the drug chloroquine has the ability to fight clonal forms of malaria inside red blood cells.
1950 was the time when chloroquine was most widely used in medicine. After that, through clinical experiments, it was found that drug resistance to chloroquine was increasing strongly, so the prevention and treatment of malaria was replaced by other drug groups.
In 1993, people reintroduced chloroquine in the treatment of malaria, showing relatively high clinical efficacy, much higher than that of other drug classes. To avoid drug resistance as happened in the late 1950s, in medicine, chloroquine has been combined with other drug classes in the treatment of malaria.
General effects of chloroquine:
Malaria prevention. Being able to kill the ameba parasite should be applied in the treatment of infections caused by this parasite. Apply effective treatment in some immune diseases such as lupus erythematosus. .. Chloroquine drugs like other drugs, the phenomenon of drug resistance, experiencing side effects when taking the drug is completely understandable. Not only chloroquine, but when using any drug, it requires examination and appointment of the treating doctor to achieve the best treatment effect while minimizing the side effects. symptoms occur.

Some side effects can be encountered when using chloroquine drugs improperly:
Affect vision, may cause blurred vision. Hearing loss or loss, tinnitus. Decreased tendon reflexes, which can lead to myasthenia gravis from mild to severe depending on the patient's condition, loss of coordination between muscle mass in the body. In some cases, it can cause seizures and convulsions. Gastrointestinal disorders: diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, dark urine, yellowing of the skin and eyes, etc. Others may have skin reactions such as red or purple rash, skin blistering and peeling accompanied by sore throat, sore tongue... Hair loss can also occur when the drug is overdosed.

Along with the complicated situation of the disease caused by the Covid 19 virus, the social network community has been buzzing about the fact that chloroquine can prevent and treat diseases caused by this virus. This leads to a consequence that people rush to buy and store chloroquine in their homes, even some cases have arbitrarily used the drug and then had to go to the emergency room to wash the intestines due to drug poisoning, vomiting. , hypotension ...

In a few laboratory studies, the effect of chloroquine has been tested on vero E6 cells in patients infected with SARS - CoV - 2 virus. The results show that chloroquine has the ability to reduces viral replication, so it can be applied clinically to prevent disease progression.
In China, the US, the Netherlands and a number of other countries, the drug has been included in clinical trials in patients who are positive for covid 19 with different degrees of illness. After that, the drug was included in the treatment regimen for pneumonia caused by covid 19, but it is necessary to closely monitor and check the patient's health before giving the patient the drug.
According to the Times of India on March 22, 2020, French scientists have provided a new ray of hope for patients positive for the Covid-19 virus that the combination of antimalarial drugs with antibiotics could be an important weapon in the fight against the Covid-19 virus. Clinical results show that the combination of chloroquine and azithromycin is relatively effective in treating the disease caused by covid 19.
From early March to mid-March 2020, in France, scientists conducted a study by giving 600mg of the drug chloroquine per day to a group of patients infected with covid 19. The patients were closely monitored throughout the process. trial and based on changes in health status to supplement azithromycin.
At the end of the study on 22 patients, the virus was significantly eliminated when using these 2 drugs together. Chloroquine has the ability to reduce or kill viruses, azithromycin is used to treat certain infections in the respiratory tract such as pneumonia, bronchitis. Combining these two drugs together will increase the effect for a better treatment effect.
According to experts, the drugs chloroquine and azithromycin are associated with prolonging the time it takes for the heart to repolarize, thereby helping to delay ventricular repolarization. To complete this process, the heart muscle needs to take longer than usual to recharge between beats.
Therefore, the use of drugs can bring danger to patients, especially in patients with chronic diseases such as liver failure, kidney failure.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said that they have been carrying out studies to test the effectiveness of the drug chloroquine in the treatment of diseases caused by covid 19. In Vietnam, currently, the Ministry of Health has not yet recommended the use of this drug to prevent Covid 19.
In general, chloroquine is a drug used to treat malaria. Currently, many countries around the world have included drugs in the treatment regimens for diseases caused by the Covid-19 virus. The combined use of chloroquine and azithromycin has shown a certain therapeutic effect.
However, this has not been confirmed so far. On the other hand, this combination can create other dangerous clinical side effects for patients. Therefore, without a doctor's prescription, do not arbitrarily store as well as use drugs to treat and prevent diseases caused by the Covid-19 virus.
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