A woman has spoken out after she and her husband both drank a fish tank cleaner called chloroquine - thinking it was the potential coronavirus treatment called hydroxychloroquine that Donald Trump has promoted at his press conferences - and her husband died.
The unidentified woman and her husband, both in their 60s, ingested chloroquine phosphate, confusing it with hydroxychloroquine, an antimalaria drug that's shown promising results in treating COVID-19 patients.
Her husband died and she was left in critical condition after drinking the chemical.
The woman told NBC: 'We were afraid we were getting sick. We were getting really worried.' She said they had been self isolating before each taking a teaspoon of the toxic chemical with soda.
She added: 'We saw his [Trump's] press conference. It was on a lot, actually. Trump kept saying it was pretty much a cure.
Referring to hydroxychloroquine she said: 'They kept saying that it was approved for other things.'
Explaining how they both fell ill within minutes, becoming dizzy and hot, she warned: 'He got so bad so fast. Don't take anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people, be so careful. Call your doctor.
'I was holding his hand. He died while they were working on him in ER.
'This is a heartache i will never get over. My husband was my whole life, it feels like, like my heart is broken & it’ll never mend. It’s just broke. Dead.
'Like my husband. Please educate the people.'
'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,' said Dr Daniel Brooks, Banner Poison and Drug Information Center medical director.
'The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.'
Experts noted that the majority of people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus would recover without complications, and that 'the routine use of specific treatments, including medications described as "anti-COVID-19", is not recommended for non-hospitalized patients'.
'We are strongly urging the medical community to not prescribe this medication to any non-hospitalized patients,' Brooks said.
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