What is hydroxychloroquine?
Hydroxychloroquine is a medication used for the treatment of malaria. It may also be used as a preventative measure against malaria when other methods have failed. In addition to its use as an anti-malarial medication, hydroxychloroquine may be prescribed as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, and both chronic discoid lupus erythematosus (chronic inflammation of the skin) and systemic lupus erythematosus (chronic inflammation of the body) in adults.
Malaria is a parasitic disease carried by mosquitos. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were nearly 241 million cases of malaria in 2020. Nearly 627,000 people died of malaria. While this disease is rarer in the United States than in other parts of the world, the CDC estimates that nearly 2,000 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.