Rabat – A Moroccan study of 108 domestic COVID-19 patients over the age of 18 concluded that hydroxychloroquine is effective in treating the virus.
The study is titled ; “study of epidemiological, clinical and evolutionary characteristics of a population of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Morocco.” The study did not include patients allergic to any of the drugs, specifically chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, pregnant women, as well as patients suffering from serious diseases.
Data on the108 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to the VINCI clinic in Casablanca were collected during August and September of 2020.
“The administration of hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin showed a beneficial effect with no associated adverse effects in the study cases,” noted the study.
Regarding therapeutic treatment, 98.1% of the subjects were treated with hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin in combination with vitamin C and zinc supplementation.
The minimal healing time is conditioned by the general and clinical characteristics of patients. Therefore, the study shows that the minimal healing time of the patients is better in younger age groups; “among our studied patients, 4.6% were transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU), 16.7% were cured after more than 15 days, while 78.7% were cured within 15 days,” said the study.
Supervised by Moroccan Dr. Jaâfar Heikel, professor of epidemiology and specialist in infectious diseases, the study aims to show evolutionary data in a population of hospitalized COVID-19 positive patients based on selected epidemiological, clinical and paraclinical data at admission.
Morocco’s public health officials had earlier approved the use of Hydroxychloroquine.
Read Also: Moroccan Scientist: Morocco’s Chloroquine Success Reveals European Failures
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on June 17 that the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) “arm of the Solidarity Trial to find an effective COVID-19 treatment was being stopped” because the medication does not “result in the reduction of mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients when compared with standard of care.”
The decision, however, does not “apply to the use or evaluation of hydroxychloroquine in pre or post-exposure prophylaxis in patients exposed to COVID-19.” In other words, HCQ may be appropriate as a preventive treatment or in the first stage of infection for specific cases.
As of November 18, Morocco has recorded a total of 94 new COVID-19 cases bringing the total number of infections to 948,271 cases.
Morocco launched the administration of the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on October 4. To date, almost 1.6 million individuals have been administered the “booster” shot.
Morocco continues its vaccination campaign against the virus, and the government expects to vaccinate 80% of the population, or 33 million people by the end of the year.
