A study on the clinical profile of the first 500 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Kerala, published by the Health department has reported that even among high risk groups, it was the early administration of the controversial malaria drug, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) combined with Azithromycin, which might have prevented many patients with mild symptoms from progressing to moderate or severe disease.
WHO had withdrawn the trial’s HCQ arm, after interim trial results showed that HCQ produced little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalised COVID-19 patients, when compared to standard of care.
The State Health department’s report endorsing the efficacy of HCQ for COVID patients with mild symptoms thus comes at a time when there is speculation that the drug might be taken out from the COVID treatment protocol by the ICMR.
The study reported that it was because of the very early admission of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Kerala that even among high risk groups, COVID-19 did not progress to severe critical disease.
The mean of number of days from symptom onset to nasopharyngeal swab collection and hospitalisation in Kerala was only 1.7 days and 3 days respectively. This was not the case in many parts of India or China or Italy, where the COVID mortality has been much higher.
The study reports that out of 500 patients, 42% were asymptomatic, 29.6% were in Category A (mild symptoms), 24.2% were in Category B (mild disease with fever) and 4.2 % were in Category C with serious illness, Out of 500 patients, three patients died (case fatality rate 0.6%).
Fever was present in 24.2%, cough in 29%, sore throat in 32.2%, myalgia in 10.8%, rhinitis in 8%, headache in 8.8%, diarrhoea in 5.4%, and fatigue in 5%. Of the 500 patients, 1% were critically ill and required ICU care.
About 1% required non-invasive ventilation,0.6% required invasive mechanical ventilation, 1% had pneumonia, 0.6% had myocarditis and 0.6% had acute kidney injury
