Buenos Aires An Argentine judge has ordered a private clinic to administer chlorine dioxide, which is used as a powerful disinfectant, to a coronavirus patient who died on Monday in the event that medical doctors called it a “scandal”. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies warn that chlorine dioxide, referred to online as a ‘miracle cure’, can be dangerous to human health if consumed.
In the wake of President Trump proposing that disinfectants be injected to treat COVID-19, a number of Americans were admitted to hospital for detoxification, and at least three people were charged with criminal offenses for selling chlorine products as remedies for the disease. .
The patient’s stepson made a legal bid last Thursday, a day after his mother died of COVID-19, to give the compound to her critically ill husband.
A judge granted the request the same day and ordered the Otamendi y Miroli Clinic in Buenos Aires to administer the drug, prescribed by the patient’s doctor.
The clinic appealed against the decision in vain and gave the man the drug, emphasizing that it would not be responsible for any negative outcome.
The patient, a 92-year-old man who was in a critical condition to the virus, died Monday, the family’s attorney confirmed.
Dico Solis / AP
The FDA has warned that consumption of chlorine dioxide products ‘could endanger a person’s health’, has no proven efficacy against COVID-19, and that it is known to cause respiratory and liver failure, among others.
The Pan American Health Organization, the Argentine Association for Infectious Diseases and the country’s national administration of drugs, food and medical devices have also issued warnings against the use of chlorine products for the treatment of COVID-19.
The judge ruled that the treatment of the clinic did not cause any serious harm, but that it could, conversely, avoid the deterioration of the patient’s condition.
Medical doctors pronounced the decision.
“Judicial deviation and a scandal”
“For a judge to decide that a doctor should administer a drug for which there is no scientific evidence, it is really worrying, especially if it is in intravenous form,” said Omar Sued, president of the Argentine Association for Infectology, said.
“It’s not a judge’s decision to administer a medication he does not know to a patient. It is not his role.”
Ignacio Maglio, a lawyer for the Argentine NGO Fundacion Huesped, said the case amounted to judicial overreaction, a ‘judicial deviation and a scandal’.
Chlorine dioxide is used to disinfect medical and laboratory equipment, to treat water in low concentrations, or as a bleach.
The family’s lawyer told television channel C5N that his client would sue the Otamendi Clinic as they considered it responsible for the patient’s death because it delayed treatment.
“The man died of an infection in the hospital and due to the delay in treatment,” the lawyer said.
Argentina announced on Monday that it will develop a new COVID-19 therapy, developed by scientists locally, using serum extracted from horses that have developed antibodies after being injected with coronavirus proteins.
The serum developed by the biotechnology company Inmunova has been tested in the 18 clinics for patients in 18 hospitals and will now be distributed to the hospitals and clinics under a special license by the Argentine ANMAT medicine dog.
Fernando Goldbaum, director of Inmunova, said the serum helps patients by suppressing viral spread, giving the body time to set up its own defense system.
The developers of the therapy said it reduced deaths by 45 percent.
According to a press release, the Argentine Biological Institute’s laboratory produces about 12,000 treatments per month.
Argentina, with a population of 44 million, has registered more than 1.7 million cases of coronavirus and nearly 44,500 deaths.