Recently, five senior administration officials stated that tech giant Oracle has joined hands with the White House to provide an online platform which will help in promoting unproven COVID-19 treatments, including a pair of malaria drugs publicised by President DonaldTrump.
According to sources, the software is still in the making stage and it is likely to be used to collect information about off-label use of the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which are not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
However, the senior health officials and other public health experts are in a debatable state and stated that the Oracle program would amount to a sprawling, crowdsourced clinical trial without the usual controls of the F.D.A.
President Trump ordered the federal government to obtain large quantities of Chloroquine, which is a medication extracted from the bark of the quinine tree and primarily used to prevent and treat malaria. To this, some of the higher officials of the US warned President Trump that there is only anecdotal evidence so far that the drugs may be effective in treating the coronavirus. Both the drugs are being studied by the F.D.A. for their effectiveness in treating the coronavirus.
The principal deputy commissioner of the F.D.A., Amy P. Abernethy said, “A randomized controlled trial is the “most appropriate way” to determine whether antimalarial drugs fit within a potential treatment program for patients with Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus”
