Dr. Ali Hassoun On The President's Diagnosis

In huntsville, grace campbell, waay31 news.

>>> coronavirus is once again dominating the national spotlight after an outbreak at the white house including president donald trump testing positive.

We are joined by dr. ali hassoun to take a deeper look here in north alabama and our nation's cap.

To thank you for joining us.

>> dr. ali hassoun: thank you for having me.

We talked to you last week after the president was first diagnosed.

Is president said it made him feel better immediately, but we know he received five doses of remdesivir just hours after taking the cocktail.

The president couldn't say enough about the effectiveness of the treatment.

So if this cocktail is so effective, why would he need remdesivir on top of that?

And is there a risk of mixing the two?

>> dr. ali hassoun: so i can tell you it will be difficult to know which medication has worked.

Because the standard or the usual treatment that we use in the hospital usually it's remdesivir and steroid.

We have not used the medication.

It's going to be extremely difficult to judge that it worked in compared to if the remdesivir has done it.

You know, as a treatment, in general, we try to avoid any experimental phase one, phase two, but he did get it under the compassionate, you know, care kind of treatment.

And for us, we usually don't use that.

I think remdesivir and dexamethasone might have done it.

It's going to be difficult to differentiate.

>> you said the president was receiving treatments that weren't able to everyone.

Both will get emergency use authorizations for therapeutics.

Both companies have submitted the requests to the fda.

We're told.

How big a step is this now in the search for a treatment?

>> dr. ali hassoun: i think it will be an important addition.

As a treatment.

But i would really like to see, you know, these are phase one, phase two data.

We have not seen any phase three data because the company has not enrolled yet from what we have known and what they have published on their website.

And really to use it in our patient under the fda emergency use authorization, we really want a larger number of people enrolled and compare to the usual standard of care.

And see if they're safe.

It is effective?

How long it makes a difference.

Because only phase one, phase two data, they had about 275 patients and the divided into three groups.

So not all of them received the medicine.

And not all of them received the same dose some it's really very hard to judge at the moment.

We really need more patient enrolled phase three to judge on this specific treatment.

>> you mentioned safety, efficacy and during the vice presidential debate last night, senator kamala harris said she would not take a coronavirus vaccine if the president said it was safe.

Might be some partisan politics involved in there.

Vice president mike pence said that was irresponsible.

Nearly half of americans said they would not get a vaccine even if it was available.

What is your take on all of that?

>> dr. ali hassoun: my usual practice and applications in every day life when i treat patients, i follow exactly what data has been published and what has been recommended.

And is it safe?

Is it good enough number of patients?

These are what we look at and decide is it going to be effective and safe.

That's what's important, science and data that's good enough, randomized is very important to say, yes, it's going to be a safe vaccine or not.

>> now when we talked last week, you said you wouldn't treat a 74-year-old overweight man the way the president was treated.

Can you walk us through the reasoning and opinion on the president's current condition after leaving the hospital so quickly?

>> dr. ali hassoun: yeah so, the main thing that comes up initially is how many different medication he's been given initially including, for example, a reflux medicine.

And i'm going to say from the data that's initially published, it did not show benefit or significant effect.

And it needed much higher doses there.

Our main concern usually, we want to use effective medication but we want to minimize the number of these medications.

Because there's always between treatment there, is interactions.

And as you get interactions and issues between these medication, you can get more side effects.

You can get toxicity.

You might affect the treatment benefit.

And that's why we want to focus on which has been shown potential benefit and we go for it rather than we use everything and hope for the best.

>> real quickly, doctors this week said the president is not out of the woods.

When, in your opinion, is he out of the woods if he was diagnosed last thursday?

>> dr. ali hassoun: now it's almost a week or a little bit more.

I think the next few days, if he continues to do well as he has done, i think he should be okay.

Because usually after developing pneumonia and it seems probably he had it because they gave him the dexamethasone and remdesivir, it's usually another week from receiving that as long as he continues without needing oxygen, fever, s gone, these are all very good signs