The Nigeria Medical Association has debunked claims on social media that chloroquine phosphate is a cure for coronavirus, aka COVID-19, saying the anti-malaria drug is not a proven antidote.
According to the China News Service, in late January, Chinese medical researchers stated that, in exploratory research considering a selection of 30 drug candidates, three of them, remdesivir, chloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir, seemed to have “fairly good inhibitory effects” on coronavirus at the cellular level.
But the NMA President, Dr. Adedayo Faduyile, in a telephone interview with The PUNCH, stated that researchers had not “established” chloroquine as a remedy for the pandemic disease.
Faduyile also noted that there was no chloroquine in the country since its use was stopped several years ago after the malaria parasite developed a resistance to the drug.
He said, “It has not been established and, again, chloroquine is not one of the drugs in the country because it has always been for the treatment of malaria and they are not using it for malaria (anymore). So, that is the situation.
“(My advice) is just for us to be careful against coronavirus and to guard against it coming into the country.”. (Punch)
