The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome COronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) is a new and recognized infectious disease of the respiratory tract that is now spreading to several countries in the world, including Brazil. Mortality rates after infection are higher in adults over 60 and with a history of comorbidities. The most serious patients need care in intensive care units (ICU). Most of the time they depend on mechanical ventilation support due to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Infection rates are higher than the capacity for intensive care, which represents a serious problem in medical care. Around 20% of those infected have severe pneumonia and so far it does not have a specific therapy, or even, an effective clinical management. Therapeutic options using malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have shown promising results in vitro and in vivo test. A recent, small, non-randomized study with hydroxychloroquine in 36 patients infected with SARS-Cov-2 proved to be promising in the ability to reset the viral load in 6 days after starting treatment. Thus, the present study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the use of hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin compared to hydroxychloroquine monotherapy in the clinical evolution by the ordinal scale of 6 points in adult patients hospitalized with pneumonia caused by infection by the SARS-CoV2 virus in Brazil.
