- Banned in France since the end of May in the treatment of Covid-19, would hydroxychloroquine on the other hand still be widely administered abroad?
- This was what Didier Raoult said on BFMTV on Thursday, listing different states where the controversial treatment he defends would be recommended by health authorities.
- China, India, Brazil, South Korea ... 20 Minutes checked the situation in the countries mentioned by the doctor.
The day after his remarkable hearing before the commission of inquiry into the coronavirus epidemic, Didier Raoult once again praised, during an interview with BFMTV, Thursday, June 25, the effectiveness of his controversial treatment based on hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19 - the use of which is no longer authorized in this context in France, excluding clinical trials.
Faced with Jean-Jacques Bourdin, who asked him "why this treatment has not been administered on the whole planet [if it is] so effective", the infectious disease specialist and director of the IHU Méditerranée Infection undertook to cite many examples from across the globe: “There are 4.5 billion people worldwide who live in countries where hydroxychloroquine is recommended for the treatment of Covid. […] In Brazil, the United States, China, India, Korea. Before nuancing: "In the United States, it is not generally recommended. "
Hydroxychloroquine: "There are 4.5 billion people who live in countries where it is recommended (...) I know this disease better than the others (...) Nobody has the data that we have on the aftereffects "
🎙 Didier Raoult, infectiologist # BourdinDirect pic.twitter.com/Gn0okDq26g
"In India, in China, in all the Far East, in all the Maghreb countries, half of the countries of black Africa, a large part of South America ... When you count all that, that makes 4 , 5 billion people, ”concluded Didier Raoult at last.
The argument is not new: already at the end of March, the director of the IHU Méditerranée Infection had shared, on Twitter, a list of the countries having "included hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their recommendations" - which we had then checked.
Three months later, however, the situation has evolved worldwide, with some states having used hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus for a while before backing up, according to studies questioning its effectiveness - when the reliability of these studies, such as that of The Lancet , was not itself questioned. 20 Minutes takes stock.
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In India, which has 1.4 billion inhabitants, hydroxychloroquine is one of the measures to combat Covid-19 formulated by the Medical Research Council, which reports to the Ministry of Health. A recommendation dated May 22 confirms that published at the end of March to recommend the use of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure, and not for contaminated people - unlike the treatment recommended by Didier Raoult.
The document also mentions, as target population, asymptomatic people belonging to health personnel, law enforcement personnel (deployed in clusters) or certain homes, into which they entered with people contaminated by Covid-19 . In addition, since the beginning of the pandemic, India has supplied hydroxychloroquine to many countries - notably in sub-Saharan Africa, where the drug has been used for a long time against malaria.
A protocol maintained in Brazil but abandoned by the American health authorities
Brazil has also not abandoned its hydroxychloroquine protocol despite studies contesting its effectiveness. The country's Ministry of Health, with a population of more than 200 million, specifies that this drug can be prescribed by doctors for "mild cases" of Covid-19, as soon as the first symptoms appear - provided that you obtain the duly declared consent of the patients concerned. The government of Jair Bolsonaro also received two million doses of hydroxychloroquine from the United States in late May.
However, as Didier Raoult noted well against Jean-Jacques Bourdin, the drug is no longer recommended "generally" in the country of Uncle Sam. In mid-June, the American health authorities withdrew the authorization to use it in emergency which was in force until then - Donald Trump having notably defended its effectiveness.
“It is no longer reasonable to believe that oral administration of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine is effective in the treatment of Covid-19. Nor is it reasonable to believe that the known and potential benefits of these products outweigh their known and potential risk, "said Denise Hinton, head of the United States Medicines Agency (FDA).
For its part, China mentions chloroquine phosphate in its "clinical protocol for the diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19". This form of chloroquine - which can be used to manufacture hydroxychloroquine - has been listed there since February latest.
Finally, if doctors had recommended the use of hydroxychloroquine in South Korea in March, the treatment protocol for Covid-19 has just been revised there. And it is no longer among its recommendations, the health authorities now preferring to remdesivir.
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