Rudy Giuliani had a Twitter post deleted over the weekend and his account temporarily blocked after he spread "COVID19 misinformation"
Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal attorney and the former Mayor of New York City, claimed that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has been proven to safeguard against coronavirus, something experts say is not the case.
"Hydroxychloroquine has been shown to have a 100% effective rate treating COVID-19 yet Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is threatening doctors who prescribe it," Giuliani tweeted.
"If Trump is for something - Democrats are against it. They're okay with people dying if it means opposing Trump".
According to Fox News, Giuliani copied the tweet from conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, with the media outlet reporting that Twitter had confirmed that the post was taken down and both accounts were temporarily locked due to a violation of its user rules regarding the spread of COVID-19 misinformation.
Giuliani's comment came after Trump claimed last week during a press conference that the anti-malaria drug could help fight the coronavirus outbreak.
"I sure as hell think we ought to give it a try," Trump said. He later tweeted that the drug - if used in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin - could be "one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine".
Trump was later contradicted by Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said there was only "anecdotal evidence" the drugs could help.
Other doctors have warned that the drugs could cause cardiac arrhythmia, a condition that can be fatal for patients with heart conditions, according to The Los Angeles Times.
According to a French study which looked at work by Chinese researchers, there was some evidence that hydroxychloroquine could slow the spread of COVID-19 by blocking it from entering cells in the body. But other research appears to show it has no obvious benefits, and in some cases has negative effects, according to The Guardian.
A man in Arizona died last week after drinking chloroquine phosphate, a chemical normally used to clean fish tanks and containing the same active ingredient as the anti-malaria drugs touted by Trump.
The man's wife, who also became sick after ingesting the chemical, told NBC News they took the substance after hearing Trump's comments.
