How Do You Figure Out What Medications Might Be Most Effective At Fighting COVID-19? And Fast!
What lies beyond hydroxychloroquine…?
We all know by now the President says he’s trying out hydroxychloroquine, because he feels the malaria drug might be good for protection against COVID-19. And while the President is rightly criticized for continuing to flog it as a “magic bullet”, based on his gut, that doesn’t mean looking into whether it might be effective wasn’t worth a shot. As long as it’s not to the detriment of the development of other treatments out there which might be more effective.
Because most likely, any near-term chance of a treatment, prophylactic or remedy will come from an unintended use of an already existing drug. No doubt, it’s much easier to make, distribute and prescribe a drug that already exists for something else, than to develop a new one, which would require several levels and probably years (usually more than 10 years) of development and testing to make sure that both:
- It works.
- It’s safe for humans to take.
According to the FDA, there are right now in the U.S.:
“Over 20,000 prescription drug products approved for marketing”.
