Vol V, Issue 3
                
                Date of Publication: July 29, 2020
            
                             DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2020.066
                            
                     
        
            
            
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         COVID-19  
                
        Covid-19 chemoprophylaxis: Ethics of prevention based on anecdotal evidence
        
        
        
            
                                        
                            Sunil Kumar Panigrahi                         
                        
                                                
                            Sagarika  Majumdar                        
                        
                                                
                            Anjali  Pal                         
                        
                                                
                            Pragyan Paramita Parija                        
                        
                                                
                            DU  Bharath                        
                        
                                    
         
        
            Abstract:
             The ongoing pandemic of Covid-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected more than 6 million all over the world and has caused more than 3.8 lakh fatalities till date(1) Health workers are the frontline responders and are exposed to a plethora of health hazards. Recently, an advisory by the Indian Council of Medical Research for the use of hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis was hailed as an outstanding initiative for the protection of healthcare workers and high risk contacts of patients. But the evidence of effectiveness available is only from in vitro studies and non-randomised control trials of insufficient sample size. Several ongoing large scale clinical trials are focused on the same research questions, the preliminary results of which are still awaited. The present study discusses the ethics of the introduction of therapeutic or preventive interventions based on limited available evidence during the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19.
         
        
            Copyright and license 
            ©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2020: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license (  CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.