What you need to know about the coronavirus right now 5-29-20

(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Hospitals slash use of hydroxychloroquine

U.S. hospitals said they have pulled way back on the use of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump as a COVID-19 treatment, after several studies suggested it is not effective and may pose significant risks.

Early hopes for the drug were based in part on lab tests and its anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. But its efficacy has so far failed to pan out in human trials, and at least two studies suggest it may increase the risk of death.

China plans to extend flight curbs

Chinese civil aviation authorities plan to extend until June 30 their curbs on international flights to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said in a travel advisory on Friday.

China has drastically cut such flights since March to allay concerns over infections brought by arriving passengers. A so-called “Five One” policy allows mainland carriers to fly just one flight a week on one route to any country and foreign airlines to operate just one flight a week to China.

Washington has accused Beijing of making it impossible for U.S. airlines to resume service to China.

Fighting misinformation

It’s not just U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets that are being fact-checked.

Twitter has also flagged a tweet written in March by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian that suggested the U.S. military brought the novel coronavirus to China, posting a blue exclamation mark under it with a comment urging readers to check the facts about COVID-19.

Clicking on the link directed readers to a page with the headline, “WHO says evidence suggests COVID-19 originated in animals and was not produced in a lab”.

Closed climbing season

Nepal’s Sherpa guides, famed for being the backbone of mountain expeditions in the Himalayas, have also found their livelihood hit by the coronavirus outbreak.

Many have returned to their villages, hiking officials say, as climbing and trekking activities have been suspended since March, and some are looking ahead with hope to the less popular autumn climbing season, which lasts from September to November.

Friday is the anniversary of the day Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, and New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary became the first people to climb the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) high Mount Everest in 1953.

(Compiled by Karishma Singh and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Frances Kerry)

U.S. veterans agency has given hydroxychloroquine to 1,300 coronavirus patients

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has treated 1,300 coronavirus patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which a study has tied to an increased risk of death, according to a document released by a Senate Democrat on Friday.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who received the information from the VA in response to questions he submitted on the issue, said he was “deeply troubled” by the data.

President Donald Trump has long urged use of hydroxychloroquine against coronavirus and recently said he has been taking it himself, despite evidence that the treatment could be harmful.

A study published on Friday in the medical journal Lancet tied the drug to an increased risk of death in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

In April, doctors at VA itself also said hydroxychloroquine did not help COVID-19 patients and might pose a higher risk of death.

The VA, which provides care to 9 million veterans, said that about 1,300 coronavirus patients who received the drug are among more than 10,000 COVID-19 patients it has treated. It has also dispensed hydroxychloroquine to about 7,500 patients with other conditions including rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

The VA said it will continue to dispense the drug under the guidelines of the Food and Drug Administration.

In answer to a question from Schumer, the VA said it was not pressured into using hydroxychloroquine by the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services or any other federal agency.

“VA, like so many medical facilities across this nation, is in a race to keep patients alive during this pandemic, and we are using as many tools as we can,” the VA told Schumer.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Sonya Hepinstall)

Novartis, U.S. drug regulator agree to malaria drug trial against COVID-19

By John Miller

ZURICH (Reuters) – Novartis has won the go-ahead from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct a randomized trial of malaria drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 disease, the Swiss drugmaker said on Monday, to see if it helps patients.

The decades-old generic medicine got FDA emergency use authorization this month for its unapproved use for coronavirus disease, but so far there is no scientific proof it works. There are currently no approved COVID-19 medicines.

Novartis plans to start recruiting 440 patients for its Phase III, or late-stage, trial within weeks at more than a dozen U.S. sites. Results will be reported as soon as possible, the company added.

Use of the drug, also approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, has soared after having been promoted by President Donald Trump, with some worried the administration’s advocacy for an unproven medicine for COVID-19 has short-circuited the FDA’s oversight process.

“We recognize the importance of answering the scientific question of whether hydroxychloroquine will be beneficial for patients with COVID-19 disease,” said John Tsai, Novartis’s top drug developer. “We mobilized quickly to address this question in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.”

Companies such as Novartis, Roche and Gilead Sciences are testing older medicines developed to treat other diseases, for signs they could be repurposed to tackle the coronavirus epidemic. Gilead just expanded a trial of its Ebola drug remdesivir.

Still, some fear the championing of hydroxychloroquine by Trump and others as a potential “game changer” against COVID-19 has overshadowed dangerous side effects like vision loss and heart problems. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan has also said the medicine is one of his biggest hopes against the viral epidemic.

There are several additional studies of hydroxychloroquine underway, including at the University of Washington and University of Minnesota, as well as work by the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

Novartis’s Sandoz generics unit has pledged to donate 130 million doses of the medicine for use. Sanofi has also said it will donate 100 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to 50 countries.

(Reporting by John Miller, editing by John Revill)