Drug touted as treatment for COVID-19 causing shortage for Lupus patients

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) — Physicians and pharmacists fear a potential treatment for COVID-19, a drug primarily used by Lupus patients, could lead to a shortage and create more problems.

President Donald Trump touted Hydroxychloroquine and Cholorquine as a treatment for Coronavirus. Over the week, Gov. Ron DeSantis mirrored the president's statement, saying a Floridian used it and it seemed to clear up the virus.

“We actually had a Floridian who used it," DeSantis said during a press conference on Saturday. "He was in very bad shape and he used it seem to clear up the lungs and virus.”

DeSantis says he is working with the US Ambassador of Israel to arrange a shipment of the medication for several hospitals in Florida.

The Lupus Foundation of America has reported a shortage of the medication.

According to Dr. Karen Costenbader, the Director of the Lupus Program at Brigham and Chair of the Lupus Foundation of America, Hydroxychloroquine is an essential long-term medication and foundation of the treatment for many chronic and severe autoimmune diseases such as Lupus.

“My lupus journey started back in 2005," Nick Monfreda said.

Four years later, he was officially diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that affects everything from joints to the brain, heart and lungs.

Monfreda was prescribed Hydroxychloroquine, the primary treatment drug.

“So I have been actively taking two doses a day for the past 13 years," he said.

Monfreda is due for a refill next week.

“So I went to my local CVS, that’s been filling my prescription for close to 15 years, and I asked the pharmacist if my refill, which is due April 7, would be available. She said, as of this point in time, there’s no stock," he said.

The American Medical Association, American Pharmastics Association and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists released a joint statement strongly opposing physicians that are prescribing the medication for themselves, their families and colleagues, as well as pharmacies and hospitals, purchasing excessive amounts of Hydroxychloroquine.

Click here to read the full statement.

“What these drugs do, potentially, is make tissue a less inhabitable environment, for the virus," said Dr. Ashira Blazer of NYU Langone Medical Center. "So the virus isn't able to reproduce itself as quickly."

Experts say suddenly stopping the treatment could lead to life-threatening problems for Lupus patients.

That worries, Monfreda, who doesn't know if his medicine will be available come April.

“Possibly finding a cure for one crisis, but creating another, I don’t think is the ideal solution. If I’m not actively taking the drug, the withdrawals of the drug would be, first and foremost, just as bad as the disease itself," Monfreda said. "Then getting back on the drug, there could be some other side effects and complications. But in essence, what it does, it helps manage the disease, it helps control the number of flare-ups that a patient does have.”

The Lupus Foundation of America is urging pharmaceutical companies to ramp up the production of the medication to curb the shortage.