How Trump's 'game-changer' drug is boosting nationalism in Brazil and India

HCQ has now been removed by the US Federal Drug Administration's list of drugs approved for use against Covid-19, yet both India and Brazil continue to recommend its use as a treatment

As Covid-19 spread around the world in early 2020, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an anti-malaria drug touted as a miracle cure by the US president Donald Trump, triggered a global, polarised debate with significant geopolitical impacts.

The debate around HCQ in the United States was widely covered in international English-language media, but the controversy swirling around the same drug in Brazil and India — two countries where partisanship is equally as rife — has received less attention.

The countries deployed drastically different responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. India declared a national lockdown on March 25, while Brazil never instituted one. In both