Also from the Indian Express (slightly more recent than your article).
Explained: What works (and does not) in Covid treatment
Experts Explain ~ Drugs used in Covid-19 treatment: As cases and deaths rise, doctors have been trying out a range of treatments. Based on current evidence and what scientists say, here’s a compendium of what works (or doesn’t) — and in what specific circumstances
Written by Dr Satchit Balsari, Dr Zarir Udwadia | New Delhi | Updated: July 15, 2020 10:23:27 am
indianexpress.com
Like a wedding guest piling food from a buffet onto their plate until there is no place left, doctors have been prescribing fistfuls of drugs when attempting to manage patients with Covid-19. We summarise based on current evidence from around the world, what scientists say works and does not, from among the treatments currently in vogue in India.
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Hydroxychloroquine sulphate (HCQS): We now have compelling data from multiple large clinical trials including WHO’s SOLIDARITY and the UK’s RECOVERY trials to categorically say: HCQS does not work. Even Donald Trump may have stopped taking it by now — and so should you.
/snip
In conclusion, six months into the pandemic, we must therefore acknowledge four facts:
1. There are few proven treatments for Covid-19 to date, and most will help sicker patients. Dexamethasone, remdesevir, and blood thinners are all proving beneficial: each under very specific circumstances.
2. The majority of patients will get well on their own without any treatment. In most, a healthy immune system will mount its own defence against the virus and overcome the disease. It is, however, said that physicians in India have always felt compelled to prescribe medications to their patients, because patients expect it. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. As with other bad habits during the pandemic, now is a good time to break it, once and for all.
3. Most current Covid drug studies are anecdotal reports or observational studies, which are not the same as, and inferior to, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) where impact on the disease is studied in two comparable groups with and without intervention. The mere announcement of a trial, anywhere in the world, even if an RCT, is not a green light for us to start prescribing these medications in the desperate hope that they will work.
4. Some of the drugs in current use are likely to end up doing more harm than good. Now, more than ever, let us not abandon the primary Hippocratic injunction of Medicine: ‘primum non nocere’ — first, do no harm. |
