Putting the Indian Government in a fix, the WHO on Monday suspended the trial of hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment over safety concerns.
The WHO move followed a Lancet study of 96,032 hospitalised coronavirus patients in which it found the antimalarial medications hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine did not appear to benefit the patients who took them. Instead, those who received one of the medications had a higher risk of death than those who did not take them.
On Thursday, the Central Government had expanded the use of the medicine as prophylaxis to healthcare and other frontline workers deployed in non-Covid and Covid area after the National Task Force (NTF) for Covid-19 constituted by the ICMR reviewed the use of HCQ.