National Taskforce for Combating Covid-19 head Lieutenant General Dr Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, who is also the Supreme Council for Health president, said the therapeutic protocol of Bahrain which uses hydroxychloroquine medication in treating Covid-19 cases has proved its effectiveness, the GDN reported today.
The kingdom is one of the first countries that used the medication, he said. Bahrain used hydroxychloroquine on February 26, after detecting the first case two days before.
He pointed out that the taskforce decided to use the medication as a result of the experience of countries that achieved 'remarkable success' in curing virus-infected cases, such as China and South Korea.
US President Donald Trump has called drugs, which are normally used to treat malaria and other conditions, 'game changers’.
New York is set to start trials, procuring 70,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine and also 750,000 doses of another drug under the Covid-19 spotlight called chloroquine.
According to medics, chloroquine is a derivative of quinine, which French chemists in 1820 isolated from the bark of the cinchona tree found in South America, employing it as a treatment for fevers.
German scientists created the synthetic chloroquine in 1934 as part of a class of anti-malarials.
Hydroxychloroquine is what's known as an analog of chloroquine, meaning the two have similar structures but different chemical and biological properties.
WHO includes it on its list of "essential medicines," meaning it should be kept affordable and accessible at all times.
