Coronavirus: More than 800 clinical trials and some first hopes (Illustration) - Mathieu Pattier / SIPA

More than 800 clinical trials seek to evaluate dozens of potential treatments with Covid-19, according to the base of the medical journal The Lancet , including more than 300 in China, 125 in the United States and 45 in France.

Blocking the entry of the virus into cells, preventing its replication, controlling the body's immune response, etc. All avenues are being explored to enable patients to better fight this multifaceted disease, which has killed more than 260,000 people worldwide.

Lots of "aborted" trials

Yet more than four months after the emergence of the new coronavirus, no treatment has yet proven its effectiveness, although some encouraging data are starting to emerge, among the hundreds of clinical trials already launched.

Professor Florence Ader, who is piloting the European trial Discovery, moderates the enthusiasm generated by this "research epidemic", with many trials "aborted in the bud", including very few patients or with insufficient methodologies " robust ”. And advises to focus efforts on a few “big studies”. Many researchers also call for not sacrificing scientific rigor, so as not to "raise false hopes".

But at the same time, researchers and labs all dream of announcing the first "the" solution to Covid, and some leaders do not hesitate to promote leads with unproven effectiveness. Also, in the United States and in France, large institutes have created controversy by announcing "positive" results before their work is fully published.

A "milestone" for Discovery next week

However, we are still awaiting the results of Discovery, which relates to four existing treatments. French President Emmanuel Macron announced an "important step" next week, but the most likely is that no "signal of effectiveness" will emerge for several more weeks, according to researchers participating in the study, due to '' longer than expected patient recruitment.

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