Reuters: U.K. halts trial of hydroxychloroquine as ‘useless’ for COVID-19 patients
“British scientists halted a major drug trial on Friday after it found that the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine, touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential ‘game changer’ in the pandemic, was ‘useless’ at treating COVID-19 patients. ‘This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn’t work,’ Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the RECOVERY trial, told reporters. ‘This result should change medical practice worldwide. We can now stop using a drug that is useless’…” (Kelland/Smout, 6/5).

STAT: Study: Hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, possibly closing door to use of drug
“Amajor clinical trial showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, likely closing the door to the use of the highly publicized medicine in the sickest patients — a use for which it was widely prescribed as the pandemic hit the U.S. The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t…” (Herper, 6/5).

Additional coverage of hydroxychloroquine is available from MedPage Today, NBC, The Telegraph, and USA TODAY.