FILE - A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday revoked the emergency use authorization for a malaria drug promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a treatment for COVID-19.
The FDA said there is growing evidence that hydroxychloroquine along with chloroquine are not likely to be effective in treating the coronavirus and could cause deadly side effects.
The agency said the drugs' unproven benefits “do not outweigh the known and potential risks.”
Several recent studies have suggested the drugs are not effective in combating COVID-19 and can cause heart complications, including heart rhythm problems and low blood pressure.
The move means that federal supplies of the drug will no longer be distributed to state and local health officials to use against the coronavirus. The decades-old drugs are still available for other uses, including combating malaria as well as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
At the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States in March, Trump said he believed hydroxychloroquine along with the antibiotic azithromycin had a “real chance” to be “game changers” in fighting COVID-19, the disease cause by the coronavirus. He later said he took hydroxychloroquine preventively to stave off the virus.