Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 – A narrative review

COVID 19 infection is unarguably the worst pandemic of this century. Till date there is no promising drug and vaccine available to treat this deadly viral infection. In the early phase chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulphate have been used to fight this illness on the basis of handful observational and small randomized and small-randomized studies. The paucity of clinical evidences of an unequivocal beneficial effect of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 has resulted in the passionate use of the drug for moderate to severe cases only and stimulated the need for large clinical trials for this and other molecules. In this review, we describe in brief the mechanism of action, the clinical studies, factors for cardiac toxicity, guidelines and future directions for hydroxychloroquine use in management of COVID-19 infection.