COVID-19 — The Drugs…and Plasma

By Nana Dadzie Ghansah

The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is novel and thus, there is neither a vaccine for it nor any proven treatment options. However, based on in-vitro data, several treatment options are being used all over the world in attempts to save as many lives as possible.

There is however very little proof that these treatments work. In some cases, these drugs may actually be harmful if the patients are critically ill. An example is chloroquine. The drug’s side effects include hepatitis and arrhythmias of the heart. However, liver and cardiac dysfunction are common in patients with critical COVID-19 and thus the drug may worsen the condition of these patients. Often when the patient dies, very little thought is given to the role these unproven therapies may have played. However due to the direness of the situation, the use of these drugs is not being challenged as doctors do all they can to save lives.

In this piece, some of the drugs being used to treat patients with COVID-19 who are severely and critically ill will be discussed.

The first line of drugs seem to be the antiviral drugs used against diseases like HIV. There is very little clinical evidence that they work against COVID-19. Hopefully the multitude of studies going on will help us all learn more about which ones are useful in this…