US President Donald Trump reacts during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on April 22, 2020, in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

US President Donald Trump has hinted that "disinfectant" can be used to cure people infected with the coronavirus after previously suggesting chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatment, which the EU said could kill patients.

Speaking during his daily briefing on Thursday night, Trump suggested injecting disinfectant into the bodies of humans to cure covid-19 patients.

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning," the president said.

However, a senior health official later told reporters that federal laboratories are neither considering nor trying to develop such a treatment option.

Yet Trump, appearing to refer to the disinfectant idea, continued to say, "You see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number [on the] lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

"We�re going to have to use medical doctors, but it seems interesting to me."

This comes as his much touted drugs - chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine - are said to have fatal side effects.

The European Medicines Agency, the EU�s drug regulator, repeated concerns on Thursday that the two drugs being prescribed in the US and some other countries as treatments for the covid-19, have yet to demonstrate any medical benefits and, therefore, should not be used outside trials or national emergency use programs.

"Recent studies have reported serious, in some cases fatal, heart rhythm problems with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, particularly when taken at high doses or in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin," read a statement by the Amsterdam-based EMA.

The drugs could also cause low blood sugar, liver and kidney problems as well as nerve cell damage that can lead to seizures.

The statement came days after the largest study on drugs, commissioned by the US government, found that the two drugs had no effects on the virus and instead, hydroxychloroquine was associated with more deaths among the patients.

Trump also doubled down on his claim that sunlight kills the coronavirus, with his vice president Mike Pence saying there was "encouraging" news about how "heat and sunlight" affect the virus. However, such a claim has been rejected by experts, including, Deborah Birx, one of Trump�s coronavirus task force members.

So far, the coronavirus has affected more than 878,000 people in the US and killed over 49,700 across the country.

SOURCE: PRESS TV

LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/16283

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