Abstract
Abstract Background: While several trials are ongoing for
treatment of COVID-19, scientific research on chemoprophylaxis is still
lacking even though it has potential to delay the pandemic allowing us
time to complete research on vaccines. Methods: We have conducted a
cohort study amongst Health Care Workers (HCW) exposed to COVID-19
patients, at a tertiary care center in India where there was an abrupt
cluster outbreak within on duty personnel. HCWs who had voluntarily
taken hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) prior to exposure were considered one
cohort while those who had not were considered to be another. All
participants with a verifiable contact history were tested for COVID-19
by rtPCR. The two cohorts were comparable in terms of age, gender,
comorbidities and exposure. The primary outcome was incidence rates of
rtPCR positive COVID-19 infection amongst HCQ users and non – users.
Results: 106 healthcare workers were examined in this cohort study of
whom 54 were HCQ users and rest were not. The comparative analysis of
incidence of infection between the two groups demonstrated that
voluntary HCQ usage was associated with lesser likelihood of developing
SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared to those who were not on it, X2=14.59,
p<0.001. None of the HCQ users noted any serious adverse effects.
Conclusions: This study demonstrated that voluntary HCQ consumption as
pre-exposure prophylaxis by HCWs is associated with a statistically
significant reduction in risk of SARS-CoV-2. These promising findings
therefore highlight the need to examine this association in greater
detail among a larger sample using Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT).
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
No funding was received.
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https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.09.20116806v1
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