Folks, none of this is a surprise. Hydroxychloroquine was approved in the US in 1955, and its side effects are well known. It is on the WHO List of Essential Medicines. It was prescribed five million times in the US in 2017, and I’ll warrant few of those scrips were for its primary use as an antimalarial. It’s the first-line treatment for SLE (Systematic Lupus Erythematosis, or Lupus).
Of particular concern right now is its again well-known interaction with various drugs that will often be present in incoming patients.