Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, Dr Malachie Manaouda has given the go ahead to his counterpart of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation to produce chloroquine tablets under the quality control of approved laboratories.

During last month’s cabinet meeting held through videoconference, Dr Madeleine Tchuente of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation had stated her services could produce six thousand chloroquine tablets every minute.

Given the fact that chloroquine appears to constitute the core of the treatment protocol against the Coronavirus pandemic as established by clinicians, Dr Malachie Manaouda in a correspondence gave the go ahead to his peer to launch the production of the drug which happens to be out of the Cameroonian market.

“I have the honour to inform you that currently, the health protocol put in place by clinicians for the treatment of patients tested positive for Covid-19 is built around chloroquine…”

“I would therefore like to ask you, if you have the necessary inputs to start manufacturing this drug…Under the quality control of approved laboratories.” Minister Malachie Manaouda said.

In the desperate search to find effective treatments for the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, two drugs, largely used by rheumatologists and dermatologists to treat immune-mediated diseases had entered the spotlight.

The chloroquine was one of these drugs. After it was established that it could be used to treat the killer virus, most countries, amongst which Cameroon went in for it, while advising its citizens against the dangers of chloroquine-auto-medication.

Today, Cameroon counts sixty COVID-19 recoveries and according to the Minister of Public Health, most of these recoveries were made possible after chloroquine was added to its Coronavirus treatment protocol.