Home » News » Lupus and arthritis patients struggle to get medicine, which is scarce due to comments about its use for covid-19, despite lack of evidence

Lupus and arthritis patients struggle to get medicine, which is scarce due to comments about its use for covid-19, despite lack of evidence

Amelia (protected name) is 44 years old and suffers Rheumatoid arthritis. This Wednesday, March 25, 2020, he said that next week he must source the medicine, for the following month. You tried to place your order with a pharmacy and they indicated that the drug is exhausted.

Its about plaquinol, whose compound is hydroxychloroquine. Being part of a plan medication keep goingAmelia was offered to put her on a list of priority people who would try to get the medicine for next week. “But they clarified that it is not safe.”

If she doesn’t take her daily pill – Amelia says – the pains return. That is only one of the consequences, points out the Beatriz León, member of the Scientific Committee of the Ecuadorian Society of Rheumatology.


The doctor and researcher explains that thanks to medicine, the patients with lupus, arthritis or other rheumatic diseases and even malaria, control pain, muscle deformation or the appearance of long-term disabilities, caused by their chronic diseases.

Stopping taking his medicine – he points out – also brings severe complications such as cardiovascular problems and infections very serious.

In social networks, lupus patients have expressed their concern for lack of medication. A sick user of lupus said she searched for plaquinol in 10 pharmacies without success.

“It is a pill that for my condition and that of many is necessary to live,” he wrote. Dayana Krays. And he appealed to the sensitivity of Ecuadorians, asking “how do you take away the opportunity to live with a person taking the medicine without being sure that this is the solution?”

Lorena Valarezo you are in the same situation. On her social network she wrote “for my illness lupus I require taking plaquinol and it has been scarce in Guayaquil because over-the-counter sales have exploded because of covid-19. How can we vulnerable people access this medicine that we so need? Please help”.

Lupus patients are calling themselves through social media to conform groups through which they can get plaquinol, after requests for patients Y relatives of people suffering from diseases that require it.

On March 21, an announcement by the President of the United States, Donald trump, caused the medicine to run out worldwide. The Prime Minister spoke of the chloroquine as a possible solution to cope with the covid-19 pandemic.

Although there is no scientific evidence that the medicine be effective against covid-19, the French scientist Didier raoult advocates its use to treat patients with covid-19.

He was referred to last Monday by the Deputy Minister of Health Ernesto Carrasco, in an interview with Teleamazonas. “We have data from international studies that show that the use of chloroquine, in at least 50% of cases, avoids progression to severe pneumonia“Said the vice minister.

He also specified that he has treatment of this type for 7,000 patients and that in 20 days a million and a half would arrive from India. But he also clarified that it can only be used under a medical prescription.

Leon of the Rheumatology Society, considers that the use of a drug without studies verifying its effectiveness “is a very serious error

The doctor remembers that in the current pandemic mistakes have already been made, for example, in recommending two drugs used in HIV. It was shown – details – that there was no difference with not taking anything or with a treatment with paracetamol, liquids and rest.

Patients with chronic diseases Those who take plaquinol – says León – usually buy their medicine for several weeks, since they know that there are seasons when it is scarce. “It is a very serious problem for patients that in the country they always have problems getting this medicine because few people with specific and very serious illnesses use it ”.

Among the recommendations that have circulated about taking this medicine for the new coronavirus their combination is azithromocin. The rheumatologist Vinicio Almeida emphasize this in danger.

Azithromycin –precisely– must be handled with caution, since it lengthens the speed in the nervous conditions of the heart and can produce severe arrhythmias and even the death.

Through a statement, the Ecuadorian Society of Cardiology He said he does not recommend chloroquine for prevention of covid-19 infection, given the lack of scientific evidence on the safety of its use.

Therefore, the Company suggests avoiding self-medication with this compound, in addition to selling it without a prescription.

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