While the medical profession is currently divided on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with Covid-19, Marseille professor Didier Raoult has received significant support in recent days: that of the former Minister of Health, Philippe Douste-Blazy. The ex-mayor of Toulouse, himself a doctor, exhorted in a video Emmanuel Macron and Olivier Véran to allow “the prescription of chloroquine to patients before it is too late”.
Questioned by RMC this Sunday evening, Douste-Blazy detailed this position. “All of this is absolutely inexplicable,” he says. “On the one hand, we have people arriving by the hundreds in hospitals. And on the other, we have a choice to make: either we do nothing, that is – say we give Doliprane and nothing else, either we have a man (Professor Raoult) and his team who did a test whose latest results show that 93% of the patients who are treated with 600 mg of Plaquenil (the chloroquine) and 250 mg azithromycin no longer have a viral load after eight days. The improvement in clinical signs is considerable in all cases. Of the 80 cases tested, there was only one deceased, 85, and a 74-year-old in intensive care. The others are fine, have not experienced any worsening, and especially since they no longer have a viral load, they are no longer contagious. major breakthrough. “
“I wish I had a perfect try, but I don’t have time for that”
As for the side effects, according to the former minister, they were too insignificant to rule out such an option. “This drug is completely harmless and especially for a period of 10 days, says Douste-Blazy, who joined the health reserve at Samu 92. I know that there are among the side effects of heart rhythm disorders for the elderly already cardiac. So either, let’s do an electrocardiogram each time we give Plaquenil. But prevent French hospital or liberal doctors from prescribing this treatment in their souls and conscience, while Professor Raoult shows that there is hope, I don’t understand. “
Nor does he understand the reluctance of professionals evoking a dangerous protocol because it has not been tested. “When we are at war, we are at war, believes Philippe Douste-Blazy. Of course, I am an epidemiologist and I would like to have clinical trials. All my life, I have done clinical trials. I would like to have a trial “But I don’t have time for that. By the time I have a perfect clinical trial, it will be too late.”
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