Australia’s drugs regulator has been forced to restrict powers to prescribe a drug undergoing clinical trials to treat Covid-19, because doctors have been inappropriately prescribing it to themselves and their family members despite its potentially deadly side-effects.

The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the similar compound chloroquine are currently used mostly for patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, but stocks in Australia have been diminished thanks to global publicity – including from Donald Trump – about the potential of the drug to treat Covid-19.

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have potentially severe and even deadly side effects if used inappropriately, including heart failure and toxicity. Some Australian media outlets have wrongly reported the drug as a “cure” for the virus even though trials have been either inconclusive or too small to be useful, have only been conducted in test tubes, are not yet complete, or have not even received ethics approval.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration said it was concerned about shortages of the drug for people who need it following increased off-label prescribing as a result of the Covid-19 reports. As well as heart attacks the drug can lead to irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar potentially leading to coma, the TGA warned.

Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as possibly “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine” and said that “it’s not going to kill anybody”. Soon after a US man died after he drank chloroquine found in fish tank cleaner because he was scared of getting sick. Other countries have also reported poisonings.

The TGA has placed tight new restrictions on doctors who are authorised to write new prescriptions for the drug, limiting it to a small group of clinical specialties. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia wrote to members urging them to “refuse the dispensing of hydroxychloroquine if there is not a genuine need”.

The letter said the PSA was receiving reports from pharmacists that “they are receiving prescriptions from doctors prescribing for other doctors and their families, as well as dentists prescribing to the community and their families”.

Locum pharmacist Daniel Roitman, who has been working at pharmacies in and around Melbourne, said he had seen general practitioners prescribing the drug to themselves and their family members, which is illegal in Victoria. He said he had also seen people attempting to collect multiple repeats of the drug from different pharmacies in the same day.

“I had a GP on Monday morning come in and he had written a script for hydroxychloroquine for his wife,” Roitman said. “I had to tell him off in no uncertain terms. I’ve also seen spikes in prescriptions of antibiotics also being used in clinical trials. I have had to tell so many people I am not dispensing these drugs, and I’ll give them the script back and write on the script that it’s inappropriate prescribing. I have also had to call the pharmacies who I see on scripts have already dispensed hydroxychloroquine that day to warn them.”

He urged people to think twice before attempting to get hold of the drug. He said he had seen a “50/50 split of doctors prescribing for themselves or prescribing for family members”.

“There are people with conditions that desperately rely on this medication and suffer excruciating pain without it and will suffer if we run out,” he said. “These drugs have a lot of risks that need to be managed and they’re not something the rest of the public should be taking. And even if eventually if it does prove to be effective in treating Covid-19, it has to be in the hands of clinical decision-makers who decide who needs it most, just like they make the same decisions about ventilators.

“It should not be in people’s pantries.”

The Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners have been contacted for comment.

New South Wales Health said it was aware of people self-medicating to treat or prevent Covid-19 and issued a statement warning of the dangers.



“At this time, there are no vaccines that protect against Covid-19 and no medications with approved indications to treat Covid-19,” the department said.

