No Evidence Chloroquine Cures Coronavirus, Lagos Warns

The Lagos State Government has said there is no evidence to back claims that Chloroquine can be used to treat Coronavirus (COVID-19).

The Lagos government said this after the United States President, Donald Trump, on Thursday, said the U.S. had approved Chloroquine for use as treatment for the new virus.

But the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, has warned Nigerians against using the anti-malarial drug.

“We do not have any hard evidence that chloroquine is effective in preventing or managing #COVID19,” Abayomi said, adding, “We are watching the global research space to clearly define its efficiency in #COVID19.”

The commissioner warned that, “Chloroquine has significant side effects and should not be used without medical supervision, as it may cause more harm than good,” adding that the, “Lagos State Ministry of Health will be conducting its own clinical trial on the effectiveness of chloroquine in the prevention or management of #COVID19 infection.”

Abayomi urged Nigerians to wait for the directives of the relevant authorities in the country on the use of chloroquine, adding that members of the public should not use the drug without medical supervision.

Meanwhile, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on Friday said it had approved the production of Chloroquine for clinical trials.

The Director-General of NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye, who disclosed in Lagos, said the clinical trials would determine whether the drug could be used to treat COVID-19.

“Right now, we have asked one company to make a batch of Chloroquine for the purpose of clinical trial,” said the NAFDAC DG.

“We’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately, and that’s where the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has been so great,” Trump told reporters.

“They’ve gone through the approval process — it’s been approved. They took it down from many, many months to immediate. So we’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription.”

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a U.S. federal agency on health, had on Thursday contradicted President Trump’s claim on the approval of Chloroquine for treating COVID-19.

The FDA said it was only planning to carry out clinical trials on the possibility of using the anti-malarial drug for treating the virus.

 As of Friday, March 20, Coronavirus has killed at least 11,186 people and infected over 265,976 globally.