A new Danish study, which can mean life and death for many Danish coronapatienter, is stranded in the Danish bureaucracy on the second week.
A large number of studies from among others, China and France shows that the remedy is as hydroxychloroquine – usually just called klorokin – has a significant positive effect on patients, who are sick of covid-19. But the Danish specialist Stig Ekkert still waiting to get started with trials on Danish patients.
“I have handed over applications and protocols in Hvidovre of 11 days ago, but it is so stranded there. Now, it should almost be ready to be sent off to the ethical committee. So go there at least a week more,” says a vexed Stig Ekkert.
Stig Ekkerts frustration comes, particularly, that he believes, one should initiate treatment with klorokin for patients with covid-19 with the same. You should not wait for the studies. Something like the national board of Health and the forsøgsansvarlige professor Thomas Benfield at Hvidovre Hospital in denmark, in turn, think can be dangerous for patients.
“We already have access to the right good results from other countries. There is no reason to believe that the results are wrong,” he says, and continues:
“I understand that you hesitated, if you were faced with a whole new preparation. But it is not the case. Klorokin we have used in more than 70 years. We all know the side effects, which are quite few and it is very cheap. Therefore, we risk nothing by using it. On the contrary, we can save lives, if it works,” says Stig Ekkert.
Stig Ekkert backed up by Niels Høiby, who sits in the committee of the regions in the Capital Region, is a retired professor of microbiology and a keen commentator on the health care system.
“We have a remedy here that works, so therefore we should use it. We must not throw us out in the very long clinical study, where you can see results for many months. So is the pandemic the over,” says Niels Høiby.
“It is too bad with the Danish forskningsbureaukrati. It may cost life, if we wait.”
One of the reasons that the Stig Ekkert not long ago is in the process of testing klorokin on Danish patients, due, among other things, that there is already running a second attempt at Hvidovre. The international trial Discovery, which will test several drugs in patients.
It is a comprehensive and extraordinarily thorough effort to live up to the strictest requirements in the world. However, there is a single snag. That comes at the earliest, useful results about six months. That is, long after most hope and believe that the whole of this pandemic is behind us.
“It is classical science, and I do not think that it is what we need right now. We need fast so-called case-trial studies, where we test patients and measuring the effects,” says Stig Ekkert and continues:
“It’s not nearly as thoroughly, since we did not have a group of patients who do not receive klorokin, which we can compare with. But we can not wait. We must act as one does in wartime,” says Stig Ekkert.
B. T. has spoken with board of Health, who do not believe that the experiments in other countries demonstrate that the klorokin have a positive effect on the covid-19. Therefore, you will not just open up for treatment with klorokin.
The position to share Thomas Benfield, chief physician and professor at Hvidovre Hospital, which is also responsible for the experiment.
“I do not trust the tests that I have seen from France and China. Therefore, place is not just to open up for treatment with klorokin,” he says.
He believes that the klorokin not necessarily harmless, even though it has been used for many years in the past.
“unfortunately, There are many examples of medicines, which have done considerably more harm than good, even though everyone thought that it was a ‘no-brainer’ and that it would have an effect. We are liable to make matters worse,” he says.
“Yes, but we also run the risk of poking the wool over people’s eyes or take the life of them. We need to have all the reflection with,” says Thomas Benfield
