Efficacy and safety evaluation of chloroquine treatment in patients with COVID-19

Background; There is no certified effective therapeutic against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) currently. Chloroquine has been shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro and used to treat pneumonia causing by COVID-19. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of co-treatment with chloroquine and antiviral agents (vs. antiviral agents alone) in patients with COVID-19 from multiple hospitals in Zhejiang, China.

Methods; This retrospective study included 251 patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 who were grouped and analyzed based on whether they were administered the antiviral drugs: lopinavir/ritonavir, interferon alpha-2b, and arbidol alone (control group) or in combination with chloroquine (treatment group). The main primary outcome was SARS-CoV-2 RNA conversion time.

Results; A total of 141 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were finally included in this study. There was no significant difference in conversion time of SARS-CoV-2 RNA between the chloroquine and no chloroquine groups in the overall and subgroup analyses (ps > 0.05). There were no significant differences in temperature recovery, computed tomography (CT) absorption ratio, and blood routine dynamics between the two groups (ps > 0.05). Although more adverse events were found in the chloroquine group, no severe adverse events were observed.
Conclusions; Our study showed no significant acceleration in viral RNA clearance or clinical outcome improvement after the addition of chloroquine adding to the treatment of COVID-19. No serious safety events were observed in patients who received chloroquine.