NEW DELHI: Healthcare workers who took anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) suffered from its side-effects like abdominal pain, nausea and hypoglycemia according to a study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
ICMR head of epidemiology and communicable diseases, Dr R R Gangakhedkar said that “A study has been launched to know the side-effects of HCQ. We found that healthcare workers having an average age of 35 years took these drugs and 10% reported abdominal pain, 6% reported nausea and 1.3% reported hypoglycemia.”
“Around 22% of these healthcare workers also had other conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and blood pressure and therefore, probably out of fear, took HCQ as a preventive measure”, he further added.
“We are not doing a trial and we don’t have sufficient evidence base to do a trial. There will be about 480 patients who will be enrolled and it will go on for about 2.5 months,” Dr Gangakhedkar said.
ICMR is also researching to find out the other effects of HCQs.
