More evidence that hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin was beneficial early? Yes, we have evidence also of benefit late in the COVID sequelae;

SOURCE:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.03.23287649v1

Retrospective monocentric cohort study, not the most robust study design yet the findings are very promising and overall the study is well done.

‘Total 30,423 COVID-19 patients were analysed (86 refused the analysis of their data) including 30,202 with available treatment data, and 535 died (1.77%). '

All-cause mortality was very low among patients < 50 years (8/15,925 (0.05%)) and among outpatients treated with HCQ-AZ (21 deaths out of 21,135 (0.1%), never exceeding 0.2% regardless of epidemic period).

HCQ-AZ treatment was associated with a significantly lower mortality rate than no HCQ-AZ after adjustment for sex, age, period and patient care setting (adjusted OR (aOR) 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.55, 0.45-0.68).

The effect was greater among outpatients (71% death protection rate) than among inpatients (45%). In a subset of 16,063 patients with available comorbidities and vaccinations status, obesity (2.01, 1.23-3.29), chronic respiratory disease (2.93, 1.29-6.64), and immunodeficiency (4.01, 1.69-9.50), on the one hand, and vaccination (0.29, 0.12-0.67) and HCQ-AZ treatment (0.47, 0.29-0.76), on the other hand, were independent factors associated with mortality.

HCQ, alone or in any association, was associated with significant protection from death among outpatients (0.41, 0.21-0.79) and inpatients (0.59, 0.47-0.73).’

Researchers concluded that ‘HCQ prescribed early or late protects in part from COVID-19-related death.’