
Small chloroquine study in Brazil halted over risk of irregular heart rate - bookofjoe
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20056424v1
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giardini
The researchers gave whopping doses of chloroquine to both groups:

(a) high dose chloroquine (600 mg chloroquine twice daily for 10 days or total
dose 12g);

(b) low dose chloroquine (450 mg for 5 days, twice daily only on the first
day, or total dose 2.7 g)

In addition, all patients received ceftriaxone and azithromycin.

So group (a) got 1200 mg chloroquine the first day and group (b) got 900 mg
chloroquine the first day. No wonder they had irregular heart rates! Luckily a
review board stopped group (a) treatment before they killed all the patients.

In contrast, the regimen for Covid-19 _successfully_ used by Dr. Zev Zelenko
on ~700 patients is:

1\. Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice a day for 5 days,

2\. Azithromycin 500 mg once a day for 5 days,

3\. Zinc sulfate 220 mg once a day for 5 days.

[https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3829492/posts](https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3829492/posts)

The zinc sulfate is _important_ because it raises the blood level of zinc
(Zn++ ion). Chloroquine is a zinc Zn++ "ionophore" which marshals Zn++ across
the cell's outer wall into the cytoplasm where the Zn++ can halt viral
replication.

"Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore":

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/)

(PDF)
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109180&type=printable)

Some researchers seem to be missing the point that chloroquine and its analogs
may play a different role here than in malaria, acting not directly against
covid-19 but as a facilitator for Zn++, which then halts covid-19 replication.

Zelenko's use of an antibiotic(azithromycin = Z-Pak) is a prophylaxis against
potential secondary bacterial infection; the antibiotic would not likely play
a role against the viral infection directly.

Once again we see that randomized, double-blinded clinical trials can be more
deadly and less informative than ad-hoc studies performed on the battlefield
of medicine.

