• Cheng Cui, Siqi Tu, Valerie Sia Jie En, Xiaobei Li, Xueting Yao, Haiyan Li, and Dongyang Liu.
• Drug Clinical Trial Center, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing 100191, China.
• Curr. Drug Metab. 2020 Jan 1; 21 (6): 427-435.

BackgroundAs the number of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infected people is greatly increasing worldwide, the international medical situation becomes very serious. Potential therapeutic drugs, vaccine and stem cell replacement methods are emerging, so it is urgent to find specific therapeutic drugs and the best treatment regimens. After the publications on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) with anti- SARS-COV-2 activity in vitro, a small, non-randomized, open-label clinical trial showed that HCQ treatment was significantly associated with reduced viral load in patients with coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Meanwhile, a large prophylaxis study of HCQ sulfate for COVID-19 has been initiated in the United States. HCQ offered a promising efficacy in the treatment of COVID-19, but the optimal administration is still being explored.MethodsWe used the keyword "hydroxychloroquine" to conduct a literature search in PubMed to collect relevant literature on the mechanism of action of HCQ, its clinical efficacy and safety, pharmacokinetic characteristics, precautions for clinical use and drug interactions to extract and organize information.ResultsThis paper reviews the mechanism, clinical efficacy and safety, pharmacokinetic characteristics, exposureresponse relationship and precautions and drug interactions of HCQ, and summarizes dosage recommendations for HCQ sulfate.ConclusionIt has been proved that HCQ, which has an established safety profile, is effective against SARS-CoV-2 with sufficient pre-clinical rationale and evidence. Data from high-quality clinical trials are urgently needed worldwide.Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.

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