HEALTH professionals must rely on scientific evidence to guide their approaches to tackling COVID-19, rather than emotion, former Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) CEO, Dr Shane Jackson, believes.
Responding to a seven page 'COVID-19 Pharmacologic Treatment' overview released by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Vice President, Dr Chris Zappala, which provided a review of available treatments, Jackson urged caution.
He noted the document did not mention prescribing restrictions, which the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) implemented to curb the off-label prescribing of hydroxychloroquine, by GPs (PD 09 Apr).
"I'm sure the document came from the right place," he said.
"Ideally the introduction would have specifically called out the TGA requirements around the prescribing of hydroxychloroquine.
"This is not off-label prescribing as might be done for other treatment... what we actually saw because of the heightened anxiety around COVID-19 was that people weren't making the right decisions.
"Doctors were prescribing it for themselves as a 'just in case'... and what we don't need is to go back to where we were two weeks ago, with people thinking that's okay - it's not okay.
"We've just got to be a bit circumspect about the messages that we put out in public, especially around treatments before we've got accurate and informed evidence about what we should do.
"We just need to be patient and let the science guide our decisions, not emotion, because there's a lot of emotion going around about COVID-19."
In a tweet, PSA SA/NT Branch Vice President, Sam Keitaanpaa, warned that over and self prescribing of medicines, including hydroxychloroquine, for COVID-19 could cause more problems than they solve.
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