Kampala, Uganda, April 22, 2020//-Uganda’s first patients who fully recovered from the deadly corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were treated using the controversial hydroxychloroquine drug that is yet to be approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The patients we are discharging today were on hydroxychloroquine and erythromycin actually,” director general of Health Services in the Ministry of Health Dr Henry Mwebesa tweeted when the country discharged the first three Covid-19 patients on April 11.
Uganda is going all out to deploy the treatment regime, President Yoweri Museveni said on Tuesday, despite caution from the WHO, scientists and top epidemiologists that hydroxychloroquine has fatal side effects.
President Museveni—who has hinted at using a homegrown anti-malarial drugs to treat Covid-19—said the government will initially import the medicine from India before starting to manufacture it locally.
Uganda-based Cipla Quality Chemicals Ltd is being touted as the firm that will do the work.
He said he spoke by phone to India Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the drug.
