West River Eagle

Hydroxychloroquine trial update at Gov. Noam’s press conference



SCREENSHOT FROM GOVERNOR KRISTI NOEM’S PRESS CONFERENCE MAY 28, 2020.

 

Two press conferences were held today regarding the state of the coronavirus pandemic in South Dakota. Governor Kristi Noem hosted Sanford Health Chief Medical Officer Allison Suttle for a video conference regarding the state-wide hydroxychloroquine trial. Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon and State Epidemiologist Josh Clayton discussed current infections, hospitalizations and testing

Dr. Suttle explained that the state’s hydroxychloroquine trial is a PEP trial, Post-Exposure Prophylaxis. The trial doses patients with the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine if they have been exposed to the coronavirus but do not yet have COVID-19. The trial administers a placebo to 50% of the participants and hydroxychloroquine to the other 50% to see if the drug will prevent illness.

Suttle likened the administration of the medication to the very early proactive administration of Tamiflu for influenza patients in order to prevent the illness from becoming more serious.

Suttle emphasized the hydroxychloroquine is not being used on inpatient cases of COVID-19.

“There were some cases where we were treating patients with hydroxychloroquine in the hospital setting. But those physicians — those critical care docs that meet regularly and discuss the literature —  are now saying that hydroxychloroquine is not useful in those scenarios. So, we are not using it in those inpatients,” she said.

The aim of the trial is to determine if the drug has any effect.

“I’m not invested in if it works or if it doesn’t work. What I want to know is an answer, so that we can move forward,” said Suttle. “A randomized placebo-controlled trial is a definitive yes/no. We’ll give 1,000 people a placebo. We’ll give 1,000 people the hydroxychloroquine. At the end of the time period we’ll be able to tell, did the ones that got hydroxychloroquine not get COVID, even though they were exposed just like the others? Or did they get COVID anyway?”

With prompting from Noem, Suttle emphasized that the South Dakota differs from a study by the World Health Organization which was cancelled due to danger to patients, including the potential of death.

“Much of the data that we’ve seen where it’s shown hydroxychloroquine can be harmful, or not have any benefits, have been on those individuals that are very sick with the disease and are in the hospital. The mechanism of action of hydroxychloroquine really doesn’t make sense in those individuals,” she said.

The trial began on May 14. The goal is to enroll 2,000 participants. Suttle did not say how many individuals are participating in the trial currently. She indicated there are “a handful.”

In order to qualify for the trial, participants must have been exposed to the coronavirus and tested negative for the virus. They must be referred through their doctor. If someone has been exposed at their place of employment, they will be notified of the exposure and offered participation in the trial.

In the morning, Secretary Malsam-Rysdon and Dr. Clayton provided the following updates on hospital capacity modeling and on current infection counts.

Regarding hospital surge planning, Malsam-Rysdon said, “We have used the modeling that we’ve been doing…for the purposes of planning for hospital surge…The purpose of that modeling was to ensure that we would be ready with enough hospital capacity, kind of with a worst case scenario in mind. Having said that…in working with the hospitals across the state we have a good plan in place. Obviously, our numbers of hospitalizations has been lower than what we projected which is a great, a great thing. And so at this point, we don’t think that the modeling itself will need to be updated for the purposes of that hospital preparation.”

Mass testing for Tier One is almost complete and underway in Tier Two. Some testing has happened in Tier 3 and 4 facilities. To date 2,570 residents and 3,706 staff have been tested.

South Dakota Data as of May 28, 2020

 

 

Business Clusters:

DemKota 153 cases

Jack Link’s 66 cases

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *