(16 April 2020) Chloroquine- Study of High-Dose Chloroquine for COVID-19 Stopped Early Due to fatal arrhythmia

Preliminary safety results of a randomized, double-blinded, phase IIb clinical trial (CloroCovid-19 Study)

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20056424v2

The researchers enrolled two groups of COVID-19 patients in a public hospital in Manaus; the high-dose group was assigned a total dose of 12 grams of chloroquine over 10 days, while the low-dose group took a total dose of 2.7 grams over 5 days. All participants also received the antibiotics ceftriaxone and azithromycin. After 11 patients died across both dosage groups, the team halted the high-dose group of the trial on day six, citing more heart rhythm problems in the high-dose group. Low Chloroquine  dose group to complete the originally planned sample size.