The Amiens University Hospital Center.

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Baziz Chibane / SIPA

  • In January, the Amiens hospital center received the “national research priority” label for a clinical study called Cov-NI.

  • This is an original treatment based on inhaled beta interferons and tested on patients with Covid-19.

The Amiens hospital center is more fortunate than the Institut Pasteur de Lille.

In January, the health and research establishment received the “national research priority” label for a clinical study called Cov-NI.

This is an original treatment tested on patients with Covid-19.

It is this same ministerial label which was refused to Pasteur to accelerate research on the repositioning of a promising drug, already on the market, and which had proved its worth during in vitro research.

The interferon trail

For their part, the Amiens researchers have embarked on another track: that of interferons, a defense protein against viruses.

The originality of the treatment lies in the administration of a molecule - whose name is kept secret - directly into the lungs, where the virus is concentrated.

Note that this method of inhaled beta-interferons is used more in China than in Europe.

"This allows us to have sufficient concentrations for the desired antiviral effects while limiting the undesirable effects because it does not pass into the blood", explains, on the Hauts-de-France site, Aurélien Mary, doctor of science and in pharmacy and clinical pharmacist in intensive care at the University Hospital of Amiens.

Research initiated in February 2020

The first research work began in February 2020. At that time, the Amiens University Hospital was the first to welcome patients with Covid-19.

The patients came from the Oise where the first epidemic foci had appeared in Creil.

Concrete research projects on Covid-19 were then quickly set up by researchers from the University Hospital of Amiens.

But the clinical trial did not start until the fall of 2020 on patients with Covid-19 in Amiens.

A recruitment phase from other hospitals in the region was then launched.

Our file on Covid-19

Depending on the patient's progress, the treatment lasts about ten days.

The follow-up then lasts about a month.

According to

Le Courrier Picard

, around twenty patients have already undergone this treatment.

Contacted by

20 Minutes

to know the first results of this clinical study, the University Hospital of Amiens did not follow up.

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  • Lille

  • Picardy

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  • Amiens

  • Coronavirus

  • Research

  • Covid 19