"It has an advantage, it is not expensive. Is it because the big labs would like to make money on the backs of our fellow citizens?" Asked the boss of senators LR about the anti-malaria drug whose effectiveness is being scientifically tested.

The boss of the senators Les Républicains Bruno Retailleau urged the government on Sunday not to "fall behind" on the treatment of the coronavirus by generalizing as of now the use of chloroquine, an anti-malaria whose effectiveness is being be scientifically tested.

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"It is not expensive"

"Chloroquine, why don't we use it?" Asked France Inter, the elected representative of Vendée. "It has an advantage, it is not expensive. Is it because the big labs would like to make money on the backs of our fellow citizens?", He continued. While the infectious disease specialist Didier Raoult conducted a promising first study in Marseille, but on a sample of only 24 patients, Bruno Retailleau argued that "we do not expect what the academic community can expect, it that is to say standard, academic, risk research rules. "

"Perhaps it should simply be prescribed in a hospital environment. But we are immediately expanding the prescription. And the Director General of Health must say to all hospitals in France: go ahead! Anyway, are we risking? people are dying, "he said. "We had enough delay on the masks, the tests, the confinement, so that we did not take on the treatment," he observed again.

Additional tests in progress

The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi (LR), himself contaminated by the coronavirus, also said Sunday on radio J that he "wants us to trust" Didier Raoult. "The Nice hospital today was supplied with Sanofi (note: chloroquine), like other hospitals in our country (...) there are protocols and from the moment the hospital doctor turns to the families by asking if they agree, well so much the better, "underlined Christian Estrosi who himself is" good ".

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Saturday, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had indicated that he asked that the study led by Professor Raoult "be reproduced on a larger scale in other hospitals, by other independent teams". A necessary complement because "no country in the world has ever granted a treatment authorization on the basis of a study like this", he argued.