Despite World Health Organization (WHO) announcing intentions to temporarily suspend the use of hydroxychloroquine for clinical trial, the Director General Of NAFDAC, Professor Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye has said Nigeria will continue using chloroquine for clinical trial.
Professor Mojisola who was a guest on Your View, said;
“I do not know the data that they’re looking at, whether it’s from the Caucasian population or from the African population. I know the clinical trial treatment is about to start in Lagos. When you do clinal trial treatment, there are many factors that can affect the clinical outcomes.
Advertisement“If the data they’re looking at and the reason for suspending the trails is from Caucasian population, then it may be justified. But I don’t think we have data from the African population yet, because our genetic make up is different. You can take for example, drugs used for hypertension . There are some drugs that will work for the African-American, or the African population that will not work for the Caucasian population.
“When you’re doing science experiment or clinical trail, you wait for the data. Once we start getting our own data in Africa, then it may go one way or the other. But I don’t dispute W.H.O’s conclusion.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that due to safety concerns, it is temporarily halting a clinical trial of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for treating coronavirus patients.
The announcement follows the publication Friday by the Lancet medical journal of an observational study on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine and its effects on hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
“The Executive Group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity Trial while the safety data is reviewed by the Data Safety Monitoring Board,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
He said that more than two months ago, the WHO initiated its “Solidarity Trial” to evaluate the safety and efficacy of four drugs and drug combinations against COVID-19.
