HYDROXYCHLOROQUIN AND AZITHROMYCIN TESTED ON 900 PHYSICIANS AT APHP
The APHP announced on Tuesday that a study of 900 caregivers will assess whether two drugs, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, are effective in preventing catching Covid-19. In all, 900 caregivers will participate in the study, launched on Tuesday. It will take 30 days to recruit all of them and they will be processed for 40 days. Its results are expected in about “70 days”, explained to AFP its manager, Professor Jean-Marc Tréluyer, from the Necker-Cochin Clinical Research Unit (AP-HP / University of Paris).
Named PrEP COVID, this study does not relate to the treatment of the disease, but to its prevention, by associating a drug treatment in prophylaxis with barrier gestures (hand washing, masks …). If the caregivers are interesting for this test, it is because they cannot confine themselves because of their work, “it seemed important to us to be more interested in them, but if it works, it can then be valid for other populations “, continues Professor Tréluyer.
Three groups tested
They will be divided into three groups: 300 will receive hydroxychloroquine (trade name Plaquenil), derived from the antimalarial chloroquine, 300 will receive azithromycin (an antibiotic) and 300 will receive a placebo.
They will be tested “at the start of the protocol, at the end of the protocol and during the protocol if they show signs” of coronavirus infection, according to Professor Tréluyer.
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin have been much talked about in recent weeks: their combination is used by Marseille professor Didier Raoult, not to prevent but to treat Covid-19. Contrary to the protocol of Pr Raoult’s team, the AP-HP study leaders chose not to combine the two drugs, but to evaluate them separately.
“In the combination of hydroxychloroquine / azithromycin, there is a risk of cardiac toxicity, so it did not seem appropriate to combine the two as part of a prevention study”, according to Professor Tréluyer. Electrocardiograms are also performed on the participants. The idea of testing these drugs to prevent Covid-19 is modeled on “what we do against malaria or AIDS,” he explains.
If the drugs tested prove to be effective, they should not be used “in place of barrier gestures but in addition,” insists Professor Tréluyer.
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