Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis with Hydroxychloroquine for High-Risk Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Duration

03/04/2020 - 03/10/2020

Coordinator

Jose Muñoz Gutiérrez

Funded by

Hospital Clinic's International Health's Department and ISGlobal

In December 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Committee (Hubei province, China) informed about an outbreak of viral pneumonia of unknown etiology. A new RNA virus from the family Coronaviridae (SARS-CoV-2) was identified as the causative agent of the human disease designated COVID-19. From then onwards, more than 130,000 confirmed cases and almost 5,000 deaths have been reported in 122 countries. Prevention of healthcare professionals’ infection is crucial for the management of a pandemic such as COVID-19. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has already demonstrated to be useful in treating healthcare contacts of other diseases, but this has not been evaluated for preventing COVID-19 yet. Since hydroxychloroquine has been observed to effectively inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, we aim to evaluate the clinical use of hydroxychloroquine in PEP in high-risk healthcare workers to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection in a unicentric, double-blinded, randomized, controlled clinical trial.