Couple ingests fish tank cleaner to fight coronavirus — and one dies, health group says
A couple in their 60s tried to fend off the coronavirus with an additive used in fish tank cleaners, according to a health care company.
Now the husband is dead and the wife is in critical condition, Banner Health said.
The Arizona-based company reported the pair had to be hospitalized within 30 minutes of ingesting chloroquine phosphate — which is commonly used to clean fish tanks in aquariums, according to a news release on Monday.
“Given the uncertainty around COVID-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” Dr. Daniel Brooks, medical director of the Banner Poison and Drug Information Center, said in the release.
Three people in Nigeria also overdosed on the same chemicals, prompting a warning from state officials there, CNN reported. All were hospitalized.
Brooks told McClatchy News the fish tank cleaner has the same active ingredient as the drug chloroquine phosphate, which is used to treat malaria, “but it is formulated differently.”
Scientists in China recommended using the malaria drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients after a study reported its “clinical and virologic benefit,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several countries have done the same, and Reuters reported Australia and France are also testing it.
President Donald Trump has since pushed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine “available as potential coronavirus treatments,” McClatchy News reported.
But FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said any such treatments in the U.S “would likely not be available for broad use for several months,” according to McClatchy.
Hydroxychloroquine is also used to treat lupus, and Trump’s announcement prompted a “run on the drug” in the U.S, according to ProPublica.
Some lupus patients have been unable to refill their prescriptions as a result.
Health care professionals have said specific treatments like chloroquine described as “anti-COVID-19” shouldn’t be used on patients in isolation at home and outside a hospital, according to Monday’s release.
“We are strongly urging the medical community to not prescribe this medication to any non-hospitalized patients,” Brooks said.
Correction: A previous version of this article and its headline conflated the malaria drug chloroquine with the additive used in fish tank cleaners, which has the same active ingredient. The couple ingested the additive, not the malaria medication, which scientists in China have recommended using to treat COVID-19. The headline and story have been updated to accurately reflect that.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Couple ingests fish tank cleaner to fight coronavirus — and one dies, health group says."
