Major trial says 'no benefit' of Trump-backed hydroxychloroquine

A clinical trial considered the "gold standard" for clinical investigation has concluded that "no benefit" of hydroxychloroquine was found on patients hospitalised with the coronavirus, researchers said on Friday.

"We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19," the statement from the chief investigators in the Recovery trial said.

The statement added that this trial that was run by the University of Oxford would stop "with immediate effect".

Hydroxychloroquine, a drug to treat malaria and was backed consistently by US President Donald Trump, with White House recently announcing that Trump took the drugs without complaining of any side-effects.

The study included 1,542 patients who were randomly given hydroxychloroquine. Their data was compared with 3,132 patients who were given standard hospital care.

The researchers said, "no significant difference" in mortality was noticed after 28 days between the two groups.

Also, no evidence suggested that the anti-malarial drug would shorten the hospitalisation period.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) restarted its trials that were temporarily stopped because of a now-retracted study in The Lancet medical journal.

(With inputs from AFP)