Trump: 'Tremendous breakthrough’ ​

Donald Trump has announced that two drugs could be a “gamechanger” in treating coronavirus and will be made available “almost immediately” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

During a briefing with the coronavirus Taskforce at the White House, the US President said the antimalarial drugs — hydroxychloroquine and Cloroquine— would soon be available for “prescribed use”.

“It’s been around for a long time, so we know if things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody,” he said today.

“It’s shown encouraging very very early results.

“We have to remove every barrier or a lot of barriers that were unnecessary and they’ve done that to get the rapid deployment of safe, effective treatments and we think we have some good answers.

“This could be a tremendous breakthrough.”

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Mr Trump said that while efforts were being made to uncover a cure for the virus, necessary testing phases meant it would be sometime until anything that worked could be disseminated to the public.

“(So we’re also) looking at things to make people better,” he said.

“Or at the very early stages make people not even know they had it.”
 

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— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 19, 2020

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn told reporters he had “great hope for how we are going to come out of this situation”.

“What’s important is not to provide falsehood, but provide hope,” he said.

Dr Hahn added that it’s the FDA’s “responsibility to the American people is to ensure that products are safe and effective” when discussing the drugs and therapeutic options being explored to address the coronavirus.

megan.palin@news.com.au | @Megan_Palin