Contrary To Medical Experts, Brazil Keeps Using Anti-Malaria Drugs For COVID-19

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JAKARTA - Brazil's Ministry of Health issued new guidelines on the wider use of anti-malarial drugs to treat people with mild COVID-19. The treatment, previously heralded by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, runs counter to public health experts who warn of other possible health risks.

Reported by Reuters on Thursday, May 21, the Minister of Health (Menkes) while Brazil, Eduardo Pazuello, endorsed the new protocol which is a modification of the previous guidelines. Pazuello is an active army general who replaced the two previous health ministers who were doctors. Both of them withdrew from their health minister positions due to pressure to promote the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

Medical experts, including the director of infectious diseases at the Pan American Health Organization, Marcos Espinal, warn that research suggests the drugs are potentially dangerous in treating the new coronavirus.

Bolsonaro is pushing for the use of the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine with his ideological ally, President of the United States (US) Donald Trump. Trump himself this week said he was taking hydroxychloroquine preventively despite warnings from the US Department of Food and Drug Administration. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also confirmed that hydroxychloroquine has an effect that must be clinically tested first.

Previous Brazilian guidelines cited the drug as an unproven treatment for severe cases of COVID-19. However, the new guidelines suggest that these anti-malarials with the antibiotic azithromycin should be used at the onset of symptoms. Patients or family members must sign a statement acknowledging if they have any potential side effects.

Brazil is the third country in the world to have the most cases of COVID-19, with 293,357 cases and 18,894 of them died. The death rate is higher than Ruisa, which is in the second place with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

Bolsonaro often calls the virus a low-grade fever and claims that his country's COVID-19 cases are decreasing. The Brazilian president was worried about economic problems and finally banned all isolation rules issued by the state government and the recommendations of medical experts.

According to a telephone survey of 1,000 people by the Ipespe poll on May 16-18, 58 percent of people said Bolsonaro's performance in dealing with the pandemic was bad or terrible and received a good rating of only 21 percent.