USA Today A discredited study that set off a flurry of interest in using an antimalarial drug to treat COVID-19 has now been formally withdrawn.
A scientific journal on Tuesday retracted the March 2020 study that introduced the world to hydroxychloroquine early in the COVID-19 pandemic – and confirmed that the attention was undeserved from the start.
The antimalarial drug was briefly touted as a possible treatment for the novel coronavirus at a time when little else was available. This early study was published just as countries were shutting down and hospital wards and morgues were filling up. It offered a glimmer of hope when doctors has few treatments available for the newly emerged virus with as it killed tens of thousands of people in its first wave.
But fellow scientists quickly raised doubts about the study’s size, scientific flaws and ethics. Follow-up studies failed to confirm its findings.