Home General Health Potential COVID-19 treatment – Chloroquine

Potential COVID-19 treatment – Chloroquine

August 13, 2020

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Chris Woollams, Coronavirus, COVID-19, treatment, Chloroquine, President Donald Trump, clinical trials, vaccines, Hydoxychloroquine, infection, quinine, Cinchona plant, Gin, tonic, azithromycin, antibiotic, infection, Professeur Didier Raoult, Professor David Patterson, University of Minnesota, HIFU, drugs, Azithromycin, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), bookends, hijack, Zinc, vitamin C — Potential COVID-19 treatment – Chloroquine

A good number of doctors and scientists believe that a Hydoxychloroquine ‘Protocol’ with zinc and Zithromax is effective for Coronavirus infection as a preventative agent or when used early in the disease; yet others claim HCQ is not effective, whilst only researching the drug on its own. Could politics be coming before patients?

Donald Trump said “Why not?” He takes Hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure. Meanwhile Dr. Anthony Fauci, a Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases stands stoically by his side talking only of vaccines and new drugs. Can we shed any light on the truth about Hydroxychloroquine and Covid-19?

Hydroxchloroquine approved for coronavirus?

The current coronavirus or Covid -19 is SARS-CoV-2. Why? Because in 2005, the World was alerted to SARS-CoV-1. 79% of the genome is common and they both use the same receptor site to enter cells.

In 2005, the National Institutes of Health told the world that “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of Coronavirus infection and spread”. The article went on to say, “chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage”. The Director of the NIH at the time was Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Does Hydroxychloroquine work with Covid-19?

Several studies have reported that HCQ doesn’t work with Covid and may even make matters worse.

Anti-virals need to be given early in infection, and in many recent US research studies, the Hydroxychloroquine has been given to patients both too late and without zinc. In fact, most of the research doesn’t even mention zinc, yet that is the main ‘active’ ingredient in the mix.

One study, The Veterans Study – funded by the National Institutes of Health and quoted widely in the American Media to discredit Hydroxychloroquine (and, one suspects, Donald Trump) – used ‘chosen’ people not a random sample and the drug was only given at late stage. There was no mention of zinc in the research report, which has now been described as total ‘Junk Science’.

Another study, a ‘world-wide’ study showing Hydroxychloroquine didn’t work and made matters worse, was first reported in the prestigious ‘Lancet’ and the ‘New England Medical Journal’ but was then exposed to be completely fraudulent by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, but not before it had been extensively covered by the American Media. Both the Lancet and the NEMJ retracted their coverage of the study.

The Doctors’ view of Hydroxychloroquine

In the UK, Dr Julian Kenyon at the Dove Clinic has told me that they have been getting excellent results with HCQ used with azithromycin and zinc.

But you need to use the combination at the early stages of the disease BEFORE the virus starts replicating profusely. Of course you do – HCQ and zinc block replication; what is the point of giving it once the virus has replicated all over the body?

An observational study by Doctors at the six hospitals of the Henry Ford Hospital System in Southeast Michigan showed that where Hydroxchloroquine was taken alongside steroids, there was a 50% lowered death rate. Of course, this is not a randomised clinical trial. It is Doctors reporting what the see happening.

Fauci immediately labelled the study “Flawed’. But two of Henry Ford’s leading Doctors have written an open letter to America’s scientific community saying “We remain focussed on advancing efforts to find a safe and effective vaccine. But the study on 2,541 hospitalised patients showed 13% of patients treated properly with Hydroxychloroquine Died, while in those untreated the figure was 26.4%”. The FDA have refused to re-approve the emergency use of the drug despite these findings on using the drug as part of a protocol.

Two videos from ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ have said much the same thing but both have now been deleted from You Tube and Social Media – why would anyone want to prevent 7 Doctors advising patients on health matters? Donald Trump’s son posted one of the Frontline Doctors’ videos on his Twitter account and it was immediately shut down. It’s bizarre? Are the Twitter Directors doctors?

America’s Frontline Doctors speak from experience – Leader Dr. Simone Gold, and Drs. Bob Hamilton, Stella Immanuel, Dan Erickson, Joe Ladapo and James Todaro have all been treating Coronavirus patients. Why would anybody want to silence them?

Gold said in the first video, “We can manage the virus carefully and intelligently. But we cannot live with this spider web of fear that’s constricting our country.”

Dr. Stella Immanuel, in the second video, stated that she treated more than 350 patients with COVID-19, including patients with co-morbidities that place them at increased risk for severe illness, complications and death. None has died.

Her staff also take it – in much the same way as America’s President. “We use hydroxychloroquine in combination with zinc — just one 200 milligram tablet of hydroxychloroquine every other week with daily zinc is an effective prophylactic that could be given to anyone at high risk of infection. By the very mechanism of action, it works early and as a prophylaxis. My staff see 10 to 15 COVID patients every day. We give them breathing treatments. We only wear surgical mask. None of us has gotten sick. It works,” said Dr. Immanuel.

For patients, Immanuel said, “The result has been the same. I put them on hydroxychloroquine, I put them on zinc, I put them on Zithromax, and they’re all well.”

Again, the politics come to the fore. Fauci says that these people are ‘Spouting rubbish’; others says that these “doctors’ personal experiences are trumped by real science”. But real science is debate, not silencing opinion. And as a real scientist myself, I have yet to see some genuine rigourous science on the performance of this Hydroxychloroquine protocol – Hydroxychloroquine provided early, with zinc and Zithromax.

In fact, the politics have become so bad that the American Association of Surgeons and Physicians have filed a lawsuit against the FDA, alleging that they unlawfully withheld 130 million doses from the American people.

What is Chloroquine?

The drug is a synthetic form of quinine, a bioactive compound found in the bark of the Cinchona plant (Writes Chris Woollams, Oxford University Biochemist). The plant bark was taken by natives of Peru for more than 400 years to treat fever. Quinine made its way into tonic and a ‘Gin and tonic’ was a staple drink of the British when traveling to malarial regions.

France officially sanctions Chloroquine for COVID-19

On March 30th 2020, France’s Minister for Health Jérôme Salomon, officially sanctioned the temporary use of Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, an antibiotic, after work by Professeur Didier Raoult on COVID-19 patients saw 78 out of 80 recover within 5 days (1).This was just his latest study on the drugs with COVID-19.

He has recently added to this – at the centre near the Mediterranean, they have treated 3000 Covid-19 patients to date; 2600 with Hydroxychloroquine and zinc, and only 10 have died!

Now Didier Raoult is being discredited in the American media.

The French research on chloroquine and COVID-19

French researchers first published(2) on March 20th in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. That study involved 42 patients – all hospitalised with COVID-19 – with 26 receiving hydroxychloroquine, and 16 on standard treatment. 6 of the 26 treated also received Azithromycin, an antibiotic.

All 6 of those receiving the drug and antibiotic were free of COVID-19 5 days later. Of the 20 remaining patients treated with just the hydroxychloroquine, 6 did not complete the course, but seven of the remaining 14 tested negative for the virus and a further 2 were no longer infected.

Other indicators of Chloroquine effectiveness

Another study(3) published on the same day, showed that Doctors in China had been using Chloroquine phosphate and achieving good results treating COVID-19 pneumonia. This is a surprise because chloroquine phosphate is a somewhat different compound and is actually used to clean aquaria!

Australian Doctors had observed much the same success with Hydroxycholoquine and are went on to conduct clinical trials(4) on the drug combination across dozens of hospitals under the supervision of Professor David Patterson. He states that the twin drugs might be a potential treatment or even cure for COVID-19 based on previous research on coronaviruses such as SARS, and on preliminary findings with COVID-19 from China and Singapore.

Trump steps in and is immediately mocked

The Democrats don’t appear to be doing too well in the Coronavirus story. Having mocked Trump widely for the travel ban on Chinese into America, they then backtracked rapidly. On chloroquine, they mocked him again calling him a quack and a peddler of false hope – the usual Big Pharma message to belittle anyone threatening profits. In this case, HCQ could threaten profitable new drugs and vaccines.

The FDA then approved Hydroxchloroquine for ‘Emergency Use’ although that implies it was to be used incorrectly in the later stages of the illness. Now the FDA have unapproved it for emergency use.

Tom Hanks partner, Rita Wilson took chloroquine and other drugs in Australia, when she had a more severe case than Tom. The drugs didn’t make her feel too good, but she’s alive and back in L.A.Rita Wilson heavily criticised the side-effects of HCQ even though it probably saved her life.

Politics is a big issue in Covid.

So what are these drugs?

Azithromycin (Zithromax) is an antibiotic which attacks bacteria involved in illnesses such a pneumonia and malaria. It is on the WHO’s list of Essential Medicines. Azithromycin has exhibited anti-viral effects in research(5).

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is sold under the brand name Plaquenil. It was approved as long ago as 1955, is off-patent, and is also on the WHO’s list of Essential Medicines. Most of the supply is in the generic form (a much cheaper copy) from India. More than 5 million doses were prescribed in the USA last year anyway! It attacks the malarial bacterium (Plasmodium) and this is part of the concern: where’s the evidence it can attack a virus?

Well, it doesn’t only work against bacteria. HCQ is also used for Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, neither of which are particularly associated with bacteria, and Porphyria which is caused by low levels of an enzyme reducing haemoglobin.There is also research showing that it inhibits the Zika Virus production in cells and reduces cell death caused by Zika(6).

So how might the Hydroxychloroquine protocol work against COVID-19?

i) How does COVID replicate? A little biochemistry (sorry!)

There are many coronaviruses; the common cold is one, and like a cold, COVID-19 is primarily transmitted on the breath. They are RNA viruses.

In human cells, we have a nucleus which contains our DNA. In order for it to send messages around our body, the DNA is copied into RNA, and this goes out of the nucleus into the cell. In order for it to then be read and create proteins, the RNA requires two protein ‘bookends’ to sit at either end before transcription can take place.

Coronaviruses ‘hijack’ your copying system, stealing your bookends. The virus RNA can now be copied. This copying uses a polymerase (RdRP), also known as a replicase. It’s your replicase!

And then off the coronavirus RNA copies go to infect other cells in your body. COVID-19 appears to work in exactly the same way.

ii) Zinc and vitamin C for coronaviruses?

In a meta-analysis of 13 studies at the Cochrane Collaboration researchers concluded that taking zinc within the first 24 hours of onset could lessen the severity and length of the common cold.

According to the World Health Organisation(7), zinc supplementation has been shown to improve outcomes among children with respiratory problems and pneumonia. It is believed to reduce inflammation in the respiratory tract and protect the cells during infection.

It may seem anecdotal to a degree but many people fervently believe that taking vitamin C is the best way to beat a cold, and there is research support(8); megadoses of vitamin C have been shown to reduce the severity of the common cold by 85%.

iii) So how might all this stop COVID-19?

Chloroquine is actually known to have many properties – for example, anti-cancer properties – and this is because it acts as an ‘ionophore’. Although, it actually possesses cytoxic properties in its own right, as an ionophore it helps carry ions into the cell; ions such as zinc.

Inside cells there are ‘lysomes’ wrapped in membranes of their own. These act to breakdown fats, carbohydrates and proteins for use in the cell. They also break down external compounds that might damage the cell. When you use chloroquine, acting as an ionophore it allows far more zinc to enter the cell and concentrates zinc levels in the lysomes blocking their breakdown action(9). This allows other drugs to more freely attack the cell.

But more than lysomes, zinc also blocks RdRP polymerase or replicase(10).

Thus chloroquine helps the transport of zinc into cells and this stops the replication of Covid-19, while also potentially allowing other compounds to more successfully attack the virus in the cell.

Providing zinc at the same time as Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine raises the levels of zinc 5-fold inside the cell.

Mahir Ozmen, a professor of surgery at the Istinye University, School of Medicine in Istanbul believes the best way to take Hydroxychloroquine is with zinc, vitamin C and vitamin D. (Go to: The Truth of Vitamin D with Covid)

Natural ionophores

Instead of Chloroquine, you could try EGCG (from green tea), artemisinin (Sweet Wormwood) and quercetin (from apples and onions), but there’s not a lot of research.

What other mechanisms may be involved?

It appears that the HCQ also binds to the ACE2 receptor where the virus binds in order to multiply, thus slowing down replication. The drug also makes the cell slightly less acidic and thus less permeable to the virus, so it cannot enter the cells so easily. It is really not clear whether the azithromycin has any direct effect on the virus.

Problems with chloroquine and COVID-19?

It looks like chloroquine has a number of side effects but these have been largely overcome by using Hydroxychloroquine, which is milder. However, when high dose HCQ has been used, it can create more problems than it solves. As we said above, in research, it has not always used with zinc, which is clearly a mistake.

If anything, the azithromycin seems to be the more toxic drug of the pair and one wonders, if it its anti-viral credentials are questionable, is it really needed?

There is a study amongst Health Care workers taking place right now and being run by the Duke Clinical Research Institute across 40 sites in America. The problem was that with all the erroneous bad press, people didn’t want to enrol in the trial. We shall see.

In conclusion for now, it seems that a Hydroxychloroquine Protocol at sensible lower levels of 200 mg every 14 days does have potential in fighting COVID-19, if taken before diagnosis or early after diagnosis, and with zinc, vitamin D and possibly vitamin C.

This protocol would at least give doctors another management option for Covid-19.

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Go to: Two all natural COVID treatments?

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References