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Some health care workers serving in novel coronavirus (COVID19) settings in India who self-medicated themselves with anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine as preventive or prophylactic treatment have shown side effects, stated Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
R Gangakhedkar, head, infectious diseases at ICMR stated that while the apex research body is conducting a separate observational study on what effects Hydroxychloroquine has on health workers, there were some who self-medicated themselves with the drug and displayed side effects.
“Average age of such health workers is 35 years of age. Abdominal pain was reported in ten per cent of all those who took the drug. Six per cent reported nausea like symptoms. A fewer proportion of workers, 1.3 per cent had hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar,” Gangakhedkar said.
He further said, “We realise that 22 per cent of these workers have diabetes, blood pressure or other coronary or vascular related ailments or respiratory ailments. They must have started self-medication because they had existing co-morbidities and feared infection.”
What is more worrisome, he said is that while they self-medicated themselves, at least 14 per cent of health care workers had not gotten their Electro Cardio Gram (ECG) checked.
Amongst many known side-effects of the drug, fast, pounding or uneven heart beat is one of them. ICMR guidelines state that health care workers should consume the drug with proper physician’s prescription. “We are continuing to study this trend in health care workers,” he said.
ICMR has also stated that it has enrolled close to 480 health care workers serving in COVID19 settings to separately study the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine as preventive treatment, an adequate number of health workers are not available to conduct clinical trials. The study will last for close to two and a half months.
Currently, the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic drug is not known.
Confirmed COVID19 cases in India - 14792
Recovered cases - 2015
Deaths - 488
(Source: As on April 18 data from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare)
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