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TUESDAY, June 2, 2020 (HealthDay News) — A surge in prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine\/chloroquine was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published online May 28 in the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Muthiah Vaduganathan, M.D., M.P.H., from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues examined trends in mean weekly prescriptions dispensed between Feb. 16 and April 25, 2020, of hydroxychloroquine\/chloroquine, azithromycin, and the top 10 drugs based on total claims in 2019 compared with mean weekly prescriptions dispensed from Feb. 17 to April 27, 2019.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that for all drugs except amoxicillin and hydrocodone-acetaminophen, fills peaked during the week of March 15 to 21, 2020, followed by subsequent decline. Hydroxychloroquine\/chloroquine fills increased during this week from 2,208 in 2019 to 45,858 prescriptions for fills of fewer than 28 tablets in 2020; 70,472 to 196,606 prescriptions for fills of 28 to 60 tablets; and 44,245 to 124,833 prescriptions for fills of more than 60 tablets (+1,977.0, +179.0, and +182.1 percent, respectively). These increases remained sustained for fills of fewer than 28 tablets and for fills of 28 to 60 tablets (+848.4 and +53.3 percent, respectively) at study end; fills for more than 60 tablets were below 2019 levels (\u221264.0 percent). Compared with 2019, in 2020, there were 483,425 excess fills of hydroxychloroquine\/chloroquine during the 10-week period.<\/p>\n
“One positive finding is that we didn’t see a stark reduction in prescription fills for routine, chronic care, but our findings for hydroxychloroquine are concerning,” a coauthor said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n