New study to provide insight on hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 prevention in health care workers
New study to provide insight on hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 prevention in health care workers
April 29, 2020
The Henry Ford Health System in Detroit recently announced it is leading the WHIP COVID-19 study, which will assess whether hydroxychloroquine will prevent or impede COVID-19 in health care workers and first responders.
Researchers aim to enroll 3,000 volunteers for the randomized, double-blind study, and preliminary results may be ready in as soon as 4 months, according to a press release from the institution. The trial is one of many underway to better understand how to treat COVID-19.
We also recognized that in both Italy and China, up to 15% of patients with COVID-19 were hospital workers. It was apparent that there is a huge risk that hospital workers would become infected.
When we looked at the literature, we saw a note from a publication that about 187 patients with lupus in China who were taking chronic hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine therapy did not get COVID-19. There was a question as to whether or not hydroxychloroquine was effective in preventing COVID-19. The drug has also been used for malaria prophylaxis.
The question then is: Would hydroxychloroquine, given prophylactically, prevent COVID-19 infection? There was no literature and no data on this. We were extremely concerned about the risks of COVID-19 to our health care workers. Unfortunately, that has borne to be true; more than 800 Henry Ford employees have been infected by the novel coronavirus. (Editor’s note: This number was accurate as of the time of publication.) Use of personal protective equipment and other equipment is helpful, but it would be better to find something more definitive for prevention of COVID-19.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013587/full
Despite lack of data on prophylaxis, the Indian Council of Medical Research has already recommended HCQ as pre‐exposure prophylaxis for frontline healthcare workers having “high‐risk” contact with patients with suspected or confirmed COVID‐19, and post‐exposure prophylaxis for household and healthcare worker contacts of patients with confirmed COVID‐19 (
ICMR 2020). The background section of this recommendation states there is in vivo evidence for efficacy of HCQ for treatment of COVID‐19, and prophylactic efficacy is inferred from therapeutic efficacy (
ICMR 2020).