Study finds hydroxychloroquine may have boosted survival, but other researchers have doubts

By Maggie Fox, Andrea Kane, and Elizabeth Cohen, CNN

Updated 1:31 PM EDT, Fri July 03, 2020


(CNN)A surprising new study found the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine helped patients better survive in the hospital. But the findings, like the federal government's use of the drug itself, were disputed.

A team at Henry Ford Health System in southeast Michigan said Thursday their study of 2,541 hospitalized patients found that those given hydroxychloroquine were much less likely to die.

Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of infectious disease for Henry Ford Health System, said 26% of those not given hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 13% of those who got the drug. The team looked back at everyone treated in the hospital system since the first patient in March.

"Overall crude mortality rates were 18.1% in the entire cohort, 13.5% in the hydroxychloroquine alone group, 20.1% among those receiving hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin, 22.4% among the azithromycin alone group, and 26.4% for neither drug," the team wrote in a report published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

......... "Our results do differ from some other studies," Zervos told a news conference. "What we think was important in ours is that patients were treated early. For hydroxychloroquine to have a benefit, it needs to begin before the patients begin to suffer some of the severe immune reactions that patients can have with Covid," he added.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/02/health/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-detroit-study/index.html