Live data from Hacker News

Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

91–100 of 174 posts

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#91
post #18

> • The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data. Shameless tangent, China has just booted its most competent respiratory disease epidemiologist from heading epidemic control committee for not backing Xi Jinping's "herbal remedies" https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3895540

I am Chinese, when has zhong nanshan ever being removed from heading the epidemic control committee. Just a few days ago he was making statements and directives as a member of that committee. This news is so fake it just smells like another Taiwan news piece smearing the Chinese government. (I have seen a number Taiwan news article that are just straight out lies. They often spin whatever happens in China has negativ…

Feels like North Korea's magic ability to resurrect military commanders after they're allegedly executed by artillery cannon, etc., lies running laps before the truth puts on its shoes.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#92

South Korea experts recommend anti-HIV, anti-malaria drugs for COVID-19 [1] Mentioned: Kaletra, an anti-HIV medication that includes the drugs lopinavir and ritonavir. Hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name Plaquenil. [1] https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/12/South-Kor...

According to this verified tweet, Kaletra didn't seem effective (point #5 in the linked images)

https://twitter.com/katyw2004/status/1236848300143280128

verification tweet: https://twitter.com/mshah85/status/1237231277251514368

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#93
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an analogue of quinine, which tonic water nowadays may contain varying (quite small) amounts of, depending on brand etc. G&Ts almost certainly won't have any effect on your susceptibility to infection nor your prognosis once infected. But they might help with (or make worse?) the anxiety associated with the panic.

Tonic water can contain up to 83mg/L actual quinine. Three 2L bottles of tonic water could get you 500mg, a therapeutic dose of quinine. Unfortunately, I have not found any place that manufacturers note how much quinine is in their tonic water.

That'd need at least 2L gin to wash it down with though, which could be problematic depending on the frequency of your 500mg prescription.

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#94
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just posted a story about a vaccine being found. Would be great to know from the experts in this area if the approach they describe in the article makes sense https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22565460

I'm fairly certain finding the vaccine is really quite easy to develop and has been done by multiple companies small and large already. The main issue is to do the clinical trials and get it approved and mass produced in a timely fashion. These trials and the validation can take about a year. Here is the official list of currently being developed covid19 vaccines (all in pre-clinical stage) https://www.who.int/bluepr…

How comes, then, that every year there is a flu vaccine ready before the season starts?

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#95
post #5

For a slightly more balanced perspective, try this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422... : Highlights from that paper (all of which look quite reasonable to me, as a non-expert): • In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication. • In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models. • Chloroq…

but the Chinese have been trying it in vivo in real ICU patients and they discovered it's better than placebo

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#96
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain finding the vaccine is really quite easy to develop and has been done by multiple companies small and large already. The main issue is to do the clinical trials and get it approved and mass produced in a timely fashion. These trials and the validation can take about a year. Here is the official list of currently being developed covid19 vaccines (all in pre-clinical stage) https://www.who.int/bluepr…

How comes, then, that every year there is a flu vaccine ready before the season starts?

(Warning: very layperson understanding below)

There are many variants of the flu. Most of them are well-enough understood to vaccinate against, and most of those have an already-tested-and-approved vaccine. The yearly flu vaccine is a combination of those vaccines for the strains the public health experts think are going to be an issue that season.

Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they don't, and we have a bad flu season (see also: this year).

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#97
post #3

I've been watching the videos in this youtube channel today, where the last couple of videos have talked about this finding : https://youtu.be/U7F1cnWup9M and https://youtu.be/vE4_LsftNKM Basically the goal is to allow zinc to get into a cell, it needs a helper to get inside the cell (a Zinc Ionophore). Apparently based on the 2nd video, Hydroxychloroquine is even more effective than Chloroquine. It's really importan…

yes they tried it on ICU patients with better outcomes

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#98
post #5

For a slightly more balanced perspective, try this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422... : Highlights from that paper (all of which look quite reasonable to me, as a non-expert): • In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication. • In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models. • Chloroq…

but the Chinese have been trying it in vivo in real ICU patients and they discovered it's better than placebo

But their data also shows TCM is better than placebo. Is chloroquine more effective than TCM?

Keep in mind that antivirals only work well if you start taking the during the first two days, TCM is reasonably safe and over the counter, whereas if you're in the US then good luck even getting tested in the first 10 days let alone prescribed something.

C.f.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104366182...

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#99
post #5

For a slightly more balanced perspective, try this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422... : Highlights from that paper (all of which look quite reasonable to me, as a non-expert): • In vitro data suggest that chloroquine inhibits SARS Cov-2 replication. • In past research, chloroquine has shown in vitro activity against many different viruses, but no benefit in animal models. • Chloroq…

Thanks for this summary.

>The outcomes of some current clinical trials of chloroquine in China have been announced, without access to the data

Which are...?

Re: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treating Covid-19

#100
Chloroquine is a really interesting drug because it is derived from quinine which is one of those "early history medicine man/woman" kinda things (Quechas) that turned out to be effective for two things: antiviral properties and great taste.

* It was used for centuries to combat malaria until it recently (~10yrs) became ineffective (I took some in the 80's for a year while working in Central America and had amazing dreams).

* It is the basis many awesome aperitifs: Byrrh, Bonal, [tonic water,] and other herbaceous spirits

If it can be used as an antiviral for COVID-19, well, that would be a really cool example of an old/ancient medicine still doin' its thing.

Post reply on HN