US President Donald Trump has disclosed that he is taking antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine daily to ward off the deadly coronavirus, though health experts have warned it may be unsafe.
Speaking at a meeting of restaurant executives on Monday, Trump said he began taking the drug after consulting the White House doctor, though stopped short of saying his physician had actually recommended it.
“A couple of weeks ago, I started taking it,” the president said. “Here’s my evidence: I get a lot of positive calls about it,” Trump told shocked reporters.
“I have been taking it (hydroxychloroquine) for about a week and a half,” he told reporters, asserting that he has zero symptoms of the deadly COVID-19, which has killed over 90,000 Americans in the past three months.
There is no evidence hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) can fight off coronavirus, though clinical trials are under way. Medical experts and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have questioned the efficacy of the antimalarial drug and warned of the potentially harmful side effects, including heart problems.
Trump, 73, said he consulted his doctors but was not explicitly recommended by the White House physicians.
“White House doctor didn’t recommend. I asked him, what do you think? He said well, if you’d like it. I said yeah, I’d like it. I’d like to take it,” he said.
Trump said he has been taking a pill of the antimalarial drug daily.
“I take a pill every day. At some point, I’ll stop. What I’d like to do is I’d like to have the cure and/or the vaccine, and that will happen, I think, very soon,” he said.
Hydroxychloroquine is one of the oldest and best-known antimalarial drugs. Trump has called hydroxychloroquine a “game-changer” drug in the fight against the coronavirus.