Pennacchio urges state to begin prescribing hydroxychloroquine

State Sen. Joe Pennacchio urged the state to begin administering a decades-old anti-malarial drug to residents most at risk for developing COVID-19.

“This is good news from the FDA, but we are three weeks behind,” Pennacchio said. “Now we’ve got to get it out there as a prophylactic to protect people at high risk and the health care and first-responders we all depend on.”

The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an emergency authorization allowing health care providers to prescribe hydroxychloroquine for treatment of the novel coronavirus.

The drug, while still largely untested as a treatment for COVID-19, has shown promise in slowing the pandemic in other countries.

“The State is behind the curve on this and we’re going to have to catch up,” Pennacchio said. “I have been talking about this for weeks and wrote to the Health Commissioner on March 17, but while the virus was getting a getting a foothold, New Jersey hid behind the FDA’s skirt, waiting for them to take action. Drawing from our many in-state pharmaceutical companies, we should have secured a stock pile of pills, like other states and a handful of countries have done, and formulated a plan to prioritize distribution of HCQ.”

The senator, an honorary chair of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, said health care workers, first responders and supermarket workers and the families of each group, should be first in line to get the drug.