(CNN) – The hydroxychloroquine arm of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Trial will end based on a recommendation from the agency’s Data Safety and Monitoring Committee, according to a WHO official.
Dr. Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, a medical officer at WHO’s Department of Immunization Vaccines and Biologicals, said during a media briefing in Geneva on Wednesday that the decision was made based on preliminary information from a separate hydroxychloroquine study in the United Kingdom that showed no benefit of the antimalarial against COVID-19, and early data from the Solidarity Trial itself.
“Today, just five minutes ago, we finalized a call with all the investigators in the trial,” Henao-Restrepo said during Wednesday’s briefing.
“A decision was made to stop the randomization with the hydroxychloroquine trial on the basis of two pieces of information. The first, the data that was published by the UK trial and second, the data that was available to us from the Solidarity Trial,” Henao-Restrepo said, later clarifying in the briefing that “they have concluded that the hydroxychloroquine arm will be stopped from the Solidarity Trial.”
In May, WHO temporarily paused the hydroxychloroquine arms of its Solidarity Trial due to concerns surrounding the safety of hydroxychloroquine and in order to review its own data. Then earlier this month, after that review, WHO announced that it would resume studying hydroxychloroquine as a potential COVID-19 treatment in the Solidarity Trial.
Yet in the days following, a separate trial in the United Kingdom, called the Recovery Trial, announced plans to stop using hydroxychloroquine in its study due to “no evidence of benefit,” according to the researchers. That spurred WHO to conduct another review of the hydroxychloroquine arm in its Solidarity Trial, which led to this most recent decision to drop hydroxychloroquine from the trial.
This latest announcement from WHO comes just days after the US Food and Drug Administration on Monday revoked its emergency use authorization for the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “WHO official says agency will stop hydroxychloroquine arm of COVID-19 Solidarity Trial”
