When he came to the studios of Europe 1 on August 26, the president of the scientific council on Covid-19, Jean-François Delfraissy, was confident about the advances in research concerning treatments against the coronavirus. “We now have hopes, in the shorter term than we imagine (…) with marketing authorizations possible from mid-November“, he assured our colleagues. But what are these promising drugs? The point in our slideshow.
Treatments to limit severe forms of covid-19
According to the Covid Trials website, more than 2,700 clinical trials have been or are being conducted to find a cure for COVID-19. This research race is starting to bear fruit. The files of several treatments are studied by health organizations for marketing.
However, the eradication of the virus is not on the agenda. “Of the nearly 300 clinical trials currently in phase 3, less than ten molecules attack the virus : the vast majority are aimed at alleviating symptoms or inflammation, “explained Bruno Canard, research director at CNRS and coronavirus specialist in the Journal du Dimanche of September 5, 2021.
Some treatments studied, called antivirals, aim to prevent the virus multiplication in the body while others try to limit the phase of massive inflammation called “cytokine storm”. The latter is responsible, among other things, for the appearance of acute respiratory distress syndromein patients with severe disease.
But beware, if the new molecules could be likely to limit the number of severe covid-19 cases, they remain less effective than vaccines. Mathieu Molimard, head of the medical pharmacology department of the Bordeaux University Hospital, explained to the Journal du Dimanche: “there is no no miracle treatment: against the inflammatory reaction, each time the risk is reduced by 10 to 30%, this is not amazing. Nothing to do with the 80-90% of the vaccine “.
For several health and research professionals, the solution could come from the use of several products as is already the case for hepatitis C or AIDS.
