Buenos Aires – An Argentine judge forced a private clinic to administer chlorine dioxide, used as a potent disinfectant, to a coronavirus patient who died Monday in a case that doctors labeled “a scandal.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies warn that chlorine dioxide, presented as an online “miracle cure,” can be dangerous to human health if consumed.
After President Trump suggested that disinfectants could be injected to treat COVID-19, several Americans were hospitalized for ingesting cleaning agents and at least three people were charged with criminal offenses for selling chlorine-based products such as remedies for the disease. .
The patient’s stepson filed a legal offer last Thursday, the day after his mother died of COVID-19, for the site to be handed over 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 substance, prescribed by the patient’s doctor.
The clinic unsuccessfully appealed against the sentence and gave the man the substance, stressing that he would not take any responsibility for any negative results.
The patient, a 92-year-old man who was in critical condition from the virus, died Monday, the family’s lawyer confirmed.
Dec Sunday / AP
The FDA has warned that consuming products with chlorine dioxide can “endanger a person’s health”, has no proven effectiveness against COVID-19 and is known to cause respiratory and liver failure, among other negative effects. .
The Pan American Health Organization, the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases, and the country’s National Administration of Drugs, Food, and Medical Devices have also issued warnings against the use of chlorine products to treat COVID-19.
The judge ruled that giving the treatment did not threaten any “serious harm” to the clinic, but on the contrary, it could “prevent the patient’s condition from getting worse”.
Doctors have rejected the decision.
“Judicial aberration and scandal”
“Having a judge decide that a doctor should administer a substance for which there is no scientific evidence is really worrying, especially when it is in intravenous form,” said Omar Sued, president of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases.
“It’s not a judge’s decision to administer a drug he doesn’t know to a patient. It’s not his role.”
Ignacio Maglio, a lawyer for the Argentine health NGO Fundacion Huesped, said the case amounts to a judicial scope, a “judicial aberration 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 C5N TV channel that his client will sue the Otamendi clinic, as he holds her responsible for the patient’s death, because he “delayed treatment.”
“The man died of a hospital infection and due to the delay in treatment,” the lawyer said.
Argentina announced Monday that it would launch a new COVID-19 therapy, developed locally by scientists, using serum extracted from horses that developed antibodies after injecting them with coronavirus proteins.
The serum developed by the biotechnology company Inmunova was tested in patients from 18 hospitals for the clinical trial phase and will now be distributed to hospitals and clinics with a special license granted by the Argentine drug surveillance dog ANMAT.
Immunova director Fernando Goldbaum said the serum helps patients by suppressing viral proliferation, giving the body time to assemble its own defense system.
Therapy developers said it reduces mortality by 45 percent.
According to a press release, the laboratory of the Argentine Biological Institute produces about 12,000 treatments a month.
Argentina, with a population of 44 million, has recorded more than 1.7 million cases of coronavirus and nearly 44,500 deaths.