Malaria drug Trump used to prevent Covid-19 found ineffective in major test

Hydroxychloroquine did not seem to cause serious harm but was no better than placebo pills, says medical journal.

A malaria drug US President Donald Trump took to try to prevent Covid-19 proved ineffective for that in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease.

Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus.

The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though—about 40 per cent on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems.

“We were disappointed. We would have liked for this to work,” said the study leader Dr David Boulware, an infectious