In the News: Didier Raoult, brilliant or whimsical?

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Professor Didier Raoult advocates the use of chloroquine to treat patients with Covid-19 but some doctors accuse him of toasting the stages in terms of tests. AFP / Gérard Julien

By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

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A physique of a prophet, a Gallic or a rocker, of your choice ... Long white hair and a beard, he is in full page photo on the front page of Liberation . With this title, " chloroquine: hope or mirage?" "

Professor Didier Raoult of the Marseille University Hospital Institute tested this antimalarial drug at the beginning of the month on a group of patients with, apparently, convincing results.

" This doctor with a physical physique from Abraracourcix transformed his Marseilles hospital into a Gallic village ," exclaims Liberation , distributing, not a magic potion, but an antimalarial medication which he claims to cure the coronavirus. We started by taking it high. But, with a guilty delay, we resigned ourselves to testing the drug he administered, it seems successfully, to some twenty patients. Wise decision which should put an end to the controversy , estimates Liberation . Hoping that the dissident is right, which would relieve thousands of sick and millions of confined people…

" With his beard and his long gray hair, Didier Raoult looks more like a sixty-eighter rocker than a professor of medicine ," notes Le Figaro . And yet, this internationally renowned infectiologist is in the spotlight (...). Creating hope for many laymen, Didier Raoult at the same time raised criticism from part of the scientific community, who warns both about the limits of his methodology and the toxic side effects of chloroquine. True genius for some, therefore, and whimsical for others. "

No track should be overlooked

So is he right? Is he wrong? We await the result of further investigations. The French medical authorities are asking for other scientific validations than the Marseille study deemed too narrow to be absolutely convincing , Pointe Sud-Ouest. And the High Council for Health recommends restricting to severe cases the use of care based on hydroxy-chloroquine. "

However, continues Sud-Ouest , “ in the war declared against the virus, the launch of additional studies shows that France and Europe do not want to neglect any track, whether chloroquine or known antivirals. And other actions are to be carried out , points out the newspaper: they consist in applying here the recipes which, elsewhere, make reverse the disease. This is particularly the case for large-scale tests which make it possible to isolate a maximum of carriers of the virus upstream, and to curb their spread. South Korea has successfully implemented this policy and, in Germany, it seems to be bearing fruit by limiting - for now - the number of deaths. "

The Asian example

Indeed, notes La Croix , hope is allowed ... " Life is resuming in China and South Korea " little by little. " Affected by the coronavirus epidemic since last December, China did not register yesterday Monday any new case of contamination of local origin with the coronavirus , notes La Croix . Overall optimism returns. "We have not had any new cases here for twenty days," said the doctor of traditional medicine interviewed by the newspaper. "We are starting to resume a normal life to the point that some people go outside without wearing a mask, which gives confidence." The government only authorized it for outdoor outings , says La Croix. Newspapers broadcast daily images of Chinese people happy to breathe again, freed from the threat of the virus. "

As for South Korea, La Croix notes, " the country has (therefore) succeeded in controlling the spread of covid-19 thanks to massive screenings (338,000 in total, which makes it possible to identify early carriers of the virus and isolate them), wearing a generalized mask, and monumental efforts to trace each infected person, in particular by demarcating smartphones. "

Humility!

In any case, notes Le Monde , " in the global fight against the pandemic, no government has yet the magic formula. (…) A duty of humility is therefore essential before judging the superiority of one tactic over the other, or debating a posteriori the merits of such or such decision. In crisis situations, political leaders must decide between sometimes contradictory opinions, take rapid decisions without necessarily having all the information or all the means they would need. (…) It is only with hindsight that we will be able to analyze what has worked and what has malfunctioned in this global fight. In the meantime, public opinion, more and more worried, needs confidence. "

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