Hope rises as chloroquine now cures Coronavirus, NAFDAC approves production for clinical trial

Hope is beginning rise on possibility of eradicating the deadly coronavirus that has been ravaging the world. A cure of the virus may have been found in Chloroquine, an abandoned anti-malaria drug. There are insinuations that chloroquine has been found active in curing coronavirus in some parts of the world, essentially, the United States (US).

Accordingly, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the production of Chloroquine for clinical trials in tackling COVID-19.

The Director-General of the NAFDAC, Mojisola Adeyeye, on Friday at the headquarters in Lagos, warned that NAFDAC is not approving Chloroquine for the treatment of  COVID-19 but for clinical trials to find treatment for the virus.

The DG highlighted: “In the case of Chloroquine, it has been demonstrated in the literature and with clinical research which is still ongoing, that Chloroquine is superior to the Placebo.

“NAFDAC is not approving Chloroquine as a product that can be used for Coronavirus because there is no submission to us for registration but because it is under clinical trials, NAFDAC approves medicines meant for clinical trials.

“Therefore, the medicine is being approved just for the clinical trials.”

Adeyeye encouraged experts and researchers interested in conducting clinical trial on Chloroquine to approach approved outlets, disc losing that a drug company has been given an approval to produce chloroquine in batches

The NAFDAC DG emphasized: “Right now, we have asked one company to make a batch of Chloroquine for the purpose of clinical trial.”

The DG, however, cautioned Nigerians not to use Chloroquine as anti-malaria.

“Nobody should use chloroquine as anti-malaria because of the resistance that has been proven to develop in the past after the use of chloroquine in the population,” she said.