While the Covid-19 pandemic is hitting France hard, scientists are organizing to find solutions to treat the sick. The French Blood Establishment is launching two clinical trials that could be decisive in the fight against the virus, while a Breton company is banking on the properties of a solution based on a molecule of sea worm blood.

What if the areniculture was the best weapon to fight against the coronavirus? This small sea worm, which can be recognized by its twists carried on the beaches, could be at the center of a new process to oxygenate the blood of the patients most affected by Covid-19. A Breton company got the green light to inject ten patients with a solution based on the molecules of their blood. According to Franck Zal, researcher behind the product (and winner of the Europe 1 2019 future trophy), hemoglobin, responsible for transporting oxygen in the body, is much more effective in this worm.

>> LIVE - Follow the evolution of the situation on Sunday, April 5

"A molecular respirator"

"It is a molecule which is capable of binding 40 times more oxygen than a human hemoglobin, this is what I call a 'molecular respirator'", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1. "It is a world first! Now, we will have to find the effective dose that makes sick people fall into a breath that allows them to avoid asphyxiation," continues Franck Zal.

CORONAVIRUS ESSENTIALS

> How long are healthy carriers contagious?

> What are the side effects of chloroquine?

> Adulterated tests, false calls for donations ...: watch out for scams linked to the coronavirus

> Reading, board games ... How to stimulate your brain during confinement?

> How to avoid gaining pounds during confinement?

A plasma transfusion to treat the sick

Because by avoiding asphyxiation, patients would thus avoid heavy resuscitation, which would have the direct consequence of relieving the stressful services in hospitals. A goal shared by another clinical trial, which starts this Tuesday in France, the "Covidplasm": 200 people cured of the virus will donate their blood plasma.

Start of the Coviplasm clinical trial to test the efficacy of plasma transfusion in convalescent Covid-19 patients in the treatment of the disease with @EFS_dondesang and @Insermhttps: //t.co/OGtWCgtJwV

- AP-HP (@APHP) April 4, 2020

Scientists assume that a healed person has developed antibodies in their body in general and their blood in particular. These people are said to be immune. Their plasma, part of their blood, will be transferred to sixty patients in the acute phase of Covid-19.

Thousands of samples to be analyzed for third clinical trial

"The hope is that it is possible to counteract the virus enough so that it does not lead the patient to pass to the second phase of aggravation", explains to the microphone of Europe 1 Pascal Morel, director the French establishment some blood. And the doctors have reason to be confident, since this type of transfusion had proven to be effective against other infectious diseases like Ebola or SARS.

>> Find Fabienne Le Moal's midday journal in replay and podcast here

Finally, a third test will be conducted by the French Blood Establishment. Thousands of donor samples will be analyzed, with the aim of knowing the number of people who have contracted the virus and establishing the rate of immunized people in a given territory. A kind of mapping of the virus and its evolution could thus be carried out. Data that will be essential to gradually bring France out of containment.