Despite loud appeals for caution, Africans are rushing to embrace chloroquine, the venerable anti-malaria drug touted as a possible treatment for coronavirus.
From hospitals in Senegal to pharmaceutical companies in South Africa and street sellers in Cameroon, chloroquine has fired hopes of a medicinal fix against a virus that is set to scythe through Africa's poorly protected countries.
Chloroquine and derivatives such as hydroxychloroquine have been used for decades as cheap and safe drugs against malaria, although their effectiveness in this field is now undermined by growing parasite resistance.
Small-scale tests in China and France -- either unpublished or outside the rigorous framework of mainstream drug trials -- suggest that chloroquine reduces virus levels in people with coronavirus.
On March 24, President Donald Trump said chloroquine could be a "gift from God" -- a comment that sparked strident criticism.
Health watchdogs have issued calls for caution until larger clinical trials are carried out, and there have been several recorded deaths from self-medication because of toxic side effects.
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Despite this, in many settings across Africa, chloroquine has been placed in the front line against coronavirus.
Its rise stems partly from desperation, given Africa's meagre capacity to deal with a pandemic on the scale seen in Europe or the United States.
Burkina Faso, Cameroon and South Africa have swiftly authorised hospitals to treat virus patients with the drugs.
Around half of infected people in Senegal are already being prescribed hydroxychloroquine, Moussa Seydi, a professor at Dakar's Fann Hospital, told AFP last Thursday.
Every patient who was recommended the drug accepted it, "with no exceptions," he said.
In Democratic Republic of Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi last week declared it was "urgent" to produce chloroquine "in industrial quantities".
South Africa has already said it will join a large-scale trial, and one of the country's biggest pharmaceutical companies has promised to donate half a million pills to the health authorities.
Even if the effectiveness of the drugs against coronavirus remains for now unproven, concern about securing enough of them already runs deep.
Two decades ago, Africa, the continent worst hit by HIV, was last in line to get new antiretroviral AIDS drugs when the treatment emerged from the labs.
"If it turns out that chloroquine is effective, Africa, which imports most of its drugs, perhaps won't be a priority for (the pharmaceutical) industry," said Professor Yap Boum of Epicenter Africa, the research arm of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
France has already imposed a ban on exporting chloroquine and Morocco has requisitioned all stocks of the drug.
"You won't find any in pharmacies in Yaounde, everyone is out of stock," Boum said, referring to the Cameroonian capital.
"Local people have been buying it, apparently without prescription, which is dangerous."