The Food and Drug Administration today revoked its emergency authorization for two related antimalarial drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, to be used for treating COVID-19.
Citing emerging scientific data, the FDA said that the drugs were “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19” and that the potential benefits don’t outweigh the known risks, including the incidence of serious cardiac events. For those reasons, the legal criteria for issuing an emergency use authorization “are no longer met,” the FDA said.
