COVID-19: Chloroquine, Effective For Early Treatment Of The Virus- NAFDAC

National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has revealed that Chloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19 at an early stage.

Director General of NAFDAC Mojisola Adeyeye who made this known on Tuesday during a virtual conference in Abuja said, they just realised that chloroquine is effective at the early stage and cost less when compared to the use of remdesivir.

She said, “In the cells, in the lab, remdesivir and chloroquine killed covid-19. At what stage would they be more effective? We didn’t know at that point. Now we are realising that chloroquine is effective at the early stage.

“I was watching CNN about 4 or 5 days ago, and there is this surgeon – Sanjay Gupta. For the first time he mentioned that chloroquine can be used prophylactically.

“I said maybe chloroquine can work. I made the press briefing, and stated that it is only for clinical trial treatment because until you do a very robust clinical trial, you cannot say that it is going to work.

“Remember, remdesivir and chloroquine work in the cells. Chloroquine was proven to work in 100 patients. We did not know at that time that the disease has about four phases – pre-exposure stage, early stage, mild stage, and the severe stage.

“When we now got the profile of remdesivir, what was recorded in literature and from the manufacturer was that remdesivir doesn’t work at the early stage. It works at the late stage.

“But when viruses are in the tube in the laboratory, you won’t know which is late or which is early. Both killed them. We are now understanding that it is not only one drug that can be effective for covid-19 but it depends on the stage and the phases of the disease.”

She further explained that an verge treatment of an infected person using remdesivir will cost  $2,500 whIle for chloroquine one will spend only $10.

West African Countries like Ghana, Togo and Senegal have embraced the clinical use of chloroquine for treatment, she added.