‘Use your brain, not social media cures’

KALIFA SARAH CLYNE

People should not use drugs they see on the internet framed as a “miracle drug” for covid19, as there are no proven treatments for the disease. Instead, “we must use our brains,” as advised by Dr Mark West, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex.

West shared the advice during the daily virtual presser on covid19 hosted by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday.

Asked about hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted as a possible treatment for people with coronavirus, West said there was no proven treatment.

Hydroxychloroquine, which initially showed promise in small trials, was later showed to cause complications and decrease the chances of survival for some patients.

“We must use the information presented to us, we rationalise it and we act on it. Covid19 is a very complex disease and many, many treatments have been tried. None have been proven by the established route of double-blind, randomised, controlled trials,” West said.

In those trials, considered the gold standard in medical research, neither the researcher nor the patient knows which drugs a patient has been given until the end of the study. Blind trials are useful in eliminating bias.

So far no drug has passed this trial stage for treatment of covid19, although the World Health Organization (WHO) is working on research around four different possible treatments. Called the Solidarity clinical trials,they look at four drugs.These are remdesivir, which was previously used to treat Ebola; lopinavir/ritonavir, a licensed treatment for HIV; interferon beta-1a, used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis; and chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

West said the drugs recommended for treatment needed proper testing across multiple sites to establish the effectiveness.

“Until we have that information, we should be very cautious, in fact, should not use drugs which people fly by on the internet or just mention or any other source saying a particular drug is a miracle cure.

“It is a very dangerous disease, very difficult to treat, no vaccine. Let’s be very clear with what we are dealing with here. There is nothing there to treat it with yet.

“We need to wear our masks and stay at home.”

While treatment options are still uncertain, principal medical officer of epidemiology Dr Naresh Nandram announced that the UWI lab should soon be ready to begin tests for the coronavirus. He said the lab was in the final stages of verification.

There will also be approved testing labs in the North Western Regional Health Authority, the South Western Regional Health Authority and the Medical Research Foundation.