The drug recommended by the Ministry of Health turned out to be deadly

Brazil has stopped testing chloroquine as a drug for treating COVID-19, reports The New York Times.

Irina Ziganshina

This is one of the drugs that the Russian Ministry of Health recommends in its guidelines.

Researchers from Brazil tested chloroquin 81 hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Half of them were prescribed 450 mg twice a day for five days, the rest - 600 mg for 10 days. Over the course of three days, some higher-dose patients developed severe heart rhythm disturbances, resulting in 11 deaths.

Researchers immediately stopped the “high-dose" part of the study. As for the "low-dose" part, then they could not come to conclusions about the effectiveness of treatment, since there were not enough patients.

According to the authors of the study, it turned out to be useful in that it showed that chloroquine causes a dose-dependent increase in the anomaly in the electrocardiogram, which can lead to sudden cardiac death.

In addition, patients in this study received the antibiotic azithromycin, whose risks also include heart rhythm disturbances. Doctors who treat patients with COVID-19 may use azithromycin, often in combination with hydroxychloroquine.