Who is Stella Immanuel, the viral Chloroquine doctor?

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An African medical practitioner, Stella Immanuel, has gained prominence over claims that Hydroxychloroquine can treat coronavirus.

Immanuel disclosed this when she addressed the press after America’s Frontline Doctors Summit in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Monday, July 27.

She claimed to have successfully treated more than 350 people in the United States using hydroxychloroquine, zinc and Zithromax.

WHO IS DR. STELLA IMMANUEL?

Dr Stella Immanuel is part of America’s Frontline Doctors, a new group which seems to have formed in the United States to support the use of Hydroxychloroquine in the cure of Covid-19.

She is Cameroonian-born but Nigerian trained physician. Her maiden name is Gwandiku-Ambe. She attended University of Calabar College of Medicine and graduated in 1990.

Immanuel is also the owner of Fire Power Deliverance Ministry and a firm disciple of Dr D.K Olukoya, the General Overseer of Pentecostal denomination, Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries.

She did Residency in Pediatrics at Bronx-Lebanon in New York and an internship under Dr. Babatunde Dosu, a Nigerian paediatrician in Dallas.

She has Medical Licenses in Louisiana, Texas (November 2019) and Kentucky. She is currently a General Practitioner based in Houston.

A Nigerian Abraham Ariyo, however, wondered how she crossed from Pediatrics to Adult Medicine /Emergency to treating a 96-year-old patient.

“Nonetheless, there is a ‘Gofundme’ page for legal troubles in her name, maybe to cash in. Also, reliable sources have confirmed that this campaign is politically motivated and sponsored by Steve Bannon’s BREITBART”, said Ariyo.

“Remember none of them was wearing masks. Also, this campaign tends to look for ‘easy manipulated doctors’ like Trump’s 2016 strange physician.”, he added.

A VIDEO OF DR. STELLA IMMANUEL SPEAKING IN WASHINGTON HAS GONE VIRAL

Dr. Stella Immanuel went viral online after speaking outside the Capitol building in Washington.

Stella and a group of other doctors all dressed in white coats stood outside the government building and spoke about their findings on Hydroxychloroquine being able to cure Covid-19.

She says: “I am here because I have personally treated over 350 patients with Covid. Patients that have diabetes. Patients that have high blood pressure. Patients that have asthma. All people, I think my oldest patient is 92. And 7-year-olds, and the result has been the same.”

Then, Dr. Stella explains the drugs she used to allegedly treat them from Covid-19, saying: “I put them on Hydroxychloroquine, I put them on Zinc, I put them on Zithromax, and they are all well.”

She pointed to a study published by the United States’ National Institute of Health to back up her claims on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and claimed in that much-maligned big pharma companies may have conspired against the use of the hydroxychloroquine to COVID-19.

BACKED BY TRUMP

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday to rant about how he believes Hydroxychloroquine can treat the coronavirus.

The drug is most widely used to treat malaria, but studies began coming out in recent months that it could potentially cure the coronavirus, however medical evidence was limited.

Trump started retweeted many posts which claimed things such as: “6000 doctors surveyed across the world all said #Hydroxychloroquine works in Covid patients.”

He then cited Dr Immanuel. Trump shared a tweet which said: “She’s a fearless warrior for the truth…..debunking the left-wing narrative on #Hydroxychloroquine that is why they want to attack her so fiercely… keep up the good fight Dr. Stella!”

HYDROCHLOROQUINE NOT PROVEN

The Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has cautioned against using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients.

National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s foremost medical research centres in the US, also shared the same sentiment and halted its clinical trial of the drug, finding that it provided no benefits.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has also warned about the dangers of the malaria drug.

The recovery trial run by Oxford University has involved 11,000 patients with coronavirus in hospitals across the UK and included testing hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness against the disease, along with other potential treatments.

It concluded that “there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with Covid-19” and the drug has now been pulled from the trial.

There’s been some hope that hydroxychloroquine could be effective if used early on when a person gets the virus before there’s a need for them to be hospitalised.

However, there’s no clear evidence on this and the jury is very much out as to its effectiveness in the early stages of infection.

There are in fact overall more than 200 trials currently underway around the world on its impact either as a prophylactic or treatment for Covid-19.

BLOCKED BY YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Immanuel’s testimony about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19 has been blocked across social media.

YouTube said it violates its rules. Facebook is also reported to have done the same, with Immanuel’s account blocked. Twitter soon followed in removing the videos, deleting several of the tweets that Trump shared, and even adding a note to its trending topics warning about the potential risks of hydroxychloroquine use.

“Tweets with the video are in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” Liz Kelley, a spokeswoman for Twitter, told The Washington Post.

Covid-19 first made an appearance in December 2019, and has been putting the globe into medical turmoil ever since. According to the World Meter, the coronavirus has now had over 60 million recorded cases and resulted in 656,000 global deaths. However, actual figures are said to be much higher.

The world is waiting for an end to this deadly disease, with Oxford University in England currently running human trials of a potential vaccine.

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