President Donald Trump says the US Food and Drug Administration has approved chloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and severe arthritis, for coronavirus treatment.
The US president said this at a press conference on Thursday.
“It (chloroquine) has been around for a long time and it’s very powerful… We know if things do not go as planned, it isn’t going to kill anybody. When you go with a brand new drug, you don’t know,” he said.
“It could be a game-changer.”
But Stephen Hahn, FDA commissioner, said the agency was still working to examine all possibilities.
“In the short term, we’re looking at drugs that are already approved for other indications,” Hahn said.
Trump had earlier on called on US health regulators to expedite potential therapies aimed at treating COVID-19 amid the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak, saying it could lead to a breakthrough while a vaccine is still under development.
The US has recorded 150 deaths from the virus which broke out in Wuhan, China, in December.