Inside story: Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine sulfate or Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) a.k.a Plaquenil is one of the anti-malarial medicine which knocked out the recent news bulletin due to its correlation with Covid19. This medicine was originally designed to fight a certain type of Malaria.  Since 1955, this medicine has gained the trust of a plethora of Americans. Consequently, HCQ made its position to the World Health Organization (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines.

Usage

How can HCQ become so popular if it can treat only Malaria? It is because, over the years pharmacologists discovered its effectiveness over other diseases like lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, porphyria cutanea tarda and Q fever. Don’t worry if you can’t pronounce these pharmaceutical terms. Nevertheless, HCQ can send these diseases to the backseat.

Symptoms

Let’s check out the symptoms of these diseases:

• Lupus Erythematosus: Chest pain during respiration, Joint pain, Oral ulcer, Fatigue, Weight-loss, Fever, and Butterfly facial rash;

• Rheumatoid Arthritis: Inflammation of joints, joints deformity, lung fibrosis and anemia;

• Porphyria Cutanea Tarda (PCT): Photosensitivity, blisters, and hyperpigmentation;

• Q Fever: Fever, malaise, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, nausea, and loss of appetite;

Side effects

Excess of anything and everything is harmful. Inevitably, we have doctors to prescribe the right dosage of every medicine ever discovered. Here are few side effects of HCQ: retinopathy, abdominal cramps, heart problems, loss of hair, and vomiting.

Can it cure Coronavirus?

Three out of five studies conducted at Qingdao, Marseille, and Wuhan showed positive effects of HCQ on a limited number of Covid19 patients. The remaining two research studies in France and China showed no evidence of clinical benefit from the medicine. Based on the research and the news articles of various studies, it has been acclaimed that there is no clear-cut prevention cure of Covid19.

India is considered to be ‘The Pharmacy of the world’, manufacturing more than 70% of the world’s HCQ production.  Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) placed an order for 10 crore HCQ tablets with two pharmaceutical giants – IPCA laboratories and Cydia Cadia.

Even during the lockdown, pharmacy companies are working around the clock to match the world’s requirements of HCQ. Since we do not have a full-fledged cure to prevent this global pandemic, we reside to the next best option – Hydroxychloroquine.

Pharmaceutical Chemistry is one of the major subjects in all the Pharmacy colleges in India. Bangalore College of Pharmacy is one of the top pharmacy colleges in Bangalore which enhances pharmaceutical skills among students. This decade-old college is managed and operated by the Bangalore Group of Institutions.