HHS: FDA issues emergency authorization of anti-malaria drugs for COVID-19 treatment

Editor's Note

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on March 29 that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) had issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19.

The FDA allowed for the drugs to be “donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by physicians to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.”

HHS also announced that Sandoz (Holzkirchen, Germany) donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to the stockpile and Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany) donated 1 million doses of chloroquine.