A Chinese pharmaceutical company employee checks the creation of chloroquine phosphate, an old malaria treatment being touted for COVID-19; the company resumed its production last month after a 15-year break.
By Charles PillerWhen President Donald Trump recently touted the common malaria treatments hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential remedies for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), he ignited unprecedented demand for the drugs—and set scientists’ teeth on edge.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) agrees the compounds are worth testing more fully on the pandemic coronavirus, few drug or infectious disease experts—not even the president’s own advisers—share his optimism that the drugs could become “one of the biggest