For French speakers, a talk yesterday from Didier Raoult who is also testing Chloroquine in France [1] (and I believe who originally discovered the anti-viral benefits of that molecule on certain viruses). He finds that it reduces significantly the viral charge. He made an interesting point. It appears infected people remain contagious for 3 weeks. Taking this drug allows to significantly reduce this period. The curr…
that would make sense:
test everybody, if positive take the drug for 5 days, rest for 2 more and back to work you go. a win for everybody!
Dr Raoult has announced yesterday that the test of hydroxychloroquine on 24 patients showed positive results, especially when combined with an antibiotic against pneumonia. Slides of the presentation are here: https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/20..., results are on the last slide.
So I’m not seeing mention of this anywhere else chloroquine is being talked about. Chloroquine used to be taken daily in many of the tropical Britain colonies suffering from malaria. chloroquine in the form of quinine is where the gin and tonic drink came from. Quinine mixed with carbonated water was drunk as a prophylactic. The quinine tasted so terrible it had to be cut with something to make it tolerable - gin! Th…
> As a cheap, safe bet it’s not unreasonable to start having a g&t each day along with a zinc pill.
Make that a zinc lozenge, though. Zinc works by coating the esophagus, and killing the virus on contact there. Zinc pills that you simply swallow don't work at all.
Cheapish - as I recall about $300 for 90-day supply of generic hydroxychloroquine if paying cash in US. I mean, not cancer drug spends but if you are on it for life it’s an annoying annual expense.
US drug prices are pretty crazy. A random search in an internet pharmacy shows 100 tablets of 200mg hydroxychloroquine is like 30€ in Germany.
For Kenya, it works out as 0.3 USD/tablet for HCQS
For French speakers, a talk yesterday from Didier Raoult who is also testing Chloroquine in France [1] (and I believe who originally discovered the anti-viral benefits of that molecule on certain viruses). He finds that it reduces significantly the viral charge. He made an interesting point. It appears infected people remain contagious for 3 weeks. Taking this drug allows to significantly reduce this period. The curr…
that would make sense: test everybody, if positive take the drug for 5 days, rest for 2 more and back to work you go. a win for everybody!
that would make sense: test everybody, if positive take the drug for 5 days, rest for 2 more and back to work you go. a win for everybody!
Because testing everybody is no big deal.
According to Raoult, it doesn’t seem to be a technical limitation, the test is a standard procedure that labs around the country already do routinely for other viruses.
> It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system ... The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$0.04. In the United States, it costs about US$5.30 per dose. [1] That's a little over 132x more expensive. Compared to other common medicines like ibuprofen ($0.04 in the developing world, $0.05 in the USA [2]), what makes…
Not uniquely.
USA is famous for very high prices of essential medicines, and being an expensive country in general.
For French speakers, a talk yesterday from Didier Raoult who is also testing Chloroquine in France [1] (and I believe who originally discovered the anti-viral benefits of that molecule on certain viruses). He finds that it reduces significantly the viral charge. He made an interesting point. It appears infected people remain contagious for 3 weeks. Taking this drug allows to significantly reduce this period. The curr…
Dr Raoult reports that after 6 days of treatment with Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) only 25% were still carrying the virus. Without treatment, 80% were still carrying the virus after 6 days. This result should be published soon.
So I’m not seeing mention of this anywhere else chloroquine is being talked about. Chloroquine used to be taken daily in many of the tropical Britain colonies suffering from malaria. chloroquine in the form of quinine is where the gin and tonic drink came from. Quinine mixed with carbonated water was drunk as a prophylactic. The quinine tasted so terrible it had to be cut with something to make it tolerable - gin! Th…
Quinine is one of the most bitter substances in the world. In capsule form it's not used much any more for malaria because the taste of the dust on the outside of the capsule made people throw up. The amount in tonic water is tiny compared to what you need if you have malaria.
> Quinine is one of the most bitter substances in the world.
It is even used as the normalizing reference index for a common bitterness index, at least according to Wikipedia.[1]
> In capsule form it's not used much any more for malaria because the taste of the dust on the outside of the capsule made people throw up.
I would suspect that it is not used widely anymore for prophylaxis because there is chloroquine-resistant malaria parasites all over the (malarial) world.[2]
The sell coated capsules, which are't bitter; these have been around for a while [3]