President Trump said on Saturday that the federal government was placing millions of doses of a malaria drug in the federal stockpile of emergency medical supplies to make it available for coronavirus patients, even though the drug has not been approved for Covid-19 treatment and his top coronavirus advisers have warned that more study is needed to determine its safety and efficacy.

Trump, in a White House briefing, went so far as to urge patients to take it.

Take it,” the president said.

And some researchers think its ability to dial back an overactive immune system — the reason it is used for autoimmune diseases — might help relieve the life-threatening inflammation that develops in some coronavirus patients.

Still, there is no definitive proof that it works against the coronavirus, and it does not have Food and Drug Administration approval for that use.

Many researchers have called for controlled clinical trials to determine once and for all whether hydroxychloroquine has any value for coronavirus patients.

President Trump warns that there will be “a lot of death” in the coming week?

will stockpile large quantities of an anti-malarial drug, the president says, though proof it can treat coronavirus is scant.

A more recent study from China was conducted more carefully than the earlier ones, and found that the drug did help, but the study was small, included only mildly ill patients and its authors said more research was needed.

With no proven treatment for the coronavirus, many hospitals in the United States have simply been giving hydroxychloroquine to patients, reasoning that it might help and probably will not hurt, because it is relatively safe.

Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency had given special permission for imported hydroxychloroquine to be used in the United States, in part to make sure that there would be enough for patients who need it for chronic diseases like lupus.

Trump said he also had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India about procuring millions more doses of hydroxychloroquine from that country\

He also said there was a study indicating that patients with lupus did not contract the coronavirus, implying that perhaps their use of hydroxychloroquine was protecting them