II. Indications

  1. Malaria Prophylaxis
    1. Areas without Chloroquine resistance
  2. Discoid Lupus (off label)
  3. NOT indicated in COVID-19 outside of clinical trials as of May 2020
    1. Low efficacy in trials to date and risk of serious reactions (including QTc Prolongation)
    2. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v2

III. Safety

  1. Safe in all trimesters of pregnancy (but Chloroquine does cross the placenta)
  2. Safe for children of all ages

IV. Dose: Malaria Prophylaxis

  1. Protocol
    1. Start 1-2 weeks before travel
    2. Continue through 4 weeks after return
  2. Adult: 300 mg base (500 mg salt) PO once weekly
  3. Child: Dose: 5 mg/kg base (8.3 mg/kg salt) up to 300 mg base orally once weekly

V. Dose: Malaria Treatment

  1. Adults
    1. Load: 1000 mg salt (600 mg base) orally at start
    2. Maintenance: 500 mg salt (300 mg base) orally at 6 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours after initial dose
  2. Child
    1. Load: 16.7 mg/kg salt (10 mg/kg base) orally at start
    2. Maintenance: 8.3 mg/kg salt (5 mg/kg base) orally at 6 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours after initial dose

VI. Technique

  1. Taking with food decreases gastric irritation

VIII. Efficacy

  1. Most world regions exhibit high Chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium Falciparum
  2. Limit use to only nonsevere infections from non-Chloroquine resistance regions

IX. References

  1. (2020) LexiComp, Chloroquine, accessed 5/6/2020
  2. Shahbodaghi (2022) Am Fam Physician 106(3): 270-8 [PubMed]

Images: Related links to external sites (from Bing)

Related Studies