MALARIA DRUGS APPROVED TO TREAT CORONA VIRUS

Career scientists have been skeptical of the effort, noting the lack of data on the drug’s efficacy for coronavirus care and worried that it would siphon medication away from patients who need it for other conditions

COVID 19 patient on life support machine in China.

The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, decades-old malaria drugs championed by US President Donald Trump for coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence.

The agency allowed for the drugs to be "donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible," HHS said in a statement, announcing that Sandoz donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to the stockpile and Bayer donated 1 million doses of chloroquine.

Career scientists have been skeptical of the effort, noting the lack of data on the drug’s efficacy for coronavirus care and worried that it would siphon medication away from patients who need it for other conditions, calling instead for the agency to pursue its usual clinical trials. Some doctors in Kenya have welcomed the news with others being skeptical arguing supremacy battles between FDA and CDC may hamper the rollout of the drugs to treat COVIC 19 patients. CDC stands for Centers for Disease Control