The CEO of Novartis has said it is 'too soon' to know whether two anti-malaria drugs could be the definitive vaccine for the coronavirus.
As of Friday, more than 537,000 people around the world had contracted COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, with 24,110 deaths.
"With hydroxychloroquine, what we know is in pre-clinical studies, the drug is quite active against the coronavirus but these are, of course, not in human beings — not in patients," Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" via video link on Friday. A logo sits on display on a building at the Novartis AG campus in Basel, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019.Chloroquine is a decades-old drug that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1949 to treat malaria. Its derivative,Speaking at a White House press briefing last week, Trump said that the two anti-malaria drugs were a "" in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, adding that they had shown "very, very encouraging results.
The outbreak has been recognized as a pandemic by the WHO, with the United Nations health agency repeatedly underlining the importance of nations moving to impose sweeping public health measures.
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