Rita Wilson says she experienced severe side effects while treating coronavirus with chloroquine

Actress Rita Wilson said Tuesday she experienced “severe side effects” while using chloroquine, a drug President Trump has repeatedly recommended for treating the novel coronavirus.

Ms. Wilson, among the first celebrities known to contract the coronavirus, said she was recently given chloroquine to combat the respiratory disease it causes, COVID-19.

“I don’t know if the drug worked or it was just time for the fever to break. But my fever did break,” Ms. Wilson said during an interview aired on CBS “This Morning.”

“But the chloroquine had such extreme side effects,” Ms. Wilson warned. “I was completely nauseous and I had vertigo. I could not walk and my muscles felt very weak.”

People should be “very considerate” about using chloroquine to treat the coronavirus, Ms. Wilson continued, adding: “We don’t really know if it’s helpful in this case.”

Mr. Trump has repeatedly touted chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, two drugs traditionally used to treat malaria, as scientists race to find a cure for the newly discovered virus.

“I think it could be a game-changer,” Mr. Trump said about the drugs last month. “And maybe not. But I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game-changer.”

Health experts have said that more tests need to be done before not determining if chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine can effectively treat COVID-19, however.

Ms. Wilson and her husband, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks, announced last month that they had tested positive for COVID-19 while in Australia, where they were subsequently quarantined for two weeks before recently returning to the U.S.

They are among hundreds of thousands of Americans confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus since the first domestic case of COVID-19 was reported in late January. More than 50,000 people in the U.S. have recovered from COVID-19, while over 26,000 have died after contracting the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.