From Senegalese hospitals to Cameroonian street pharmacies, via South African pharmaceutical companies, sub-Saharan Africa, helpless against the coronavirus, rushes on chloroquine, a drug well known to Africans.

This treatment and its derivatives such as hydroxychloroquine, used for years to treat malaria on the continent, raise much hope in the world. But their effectiveness is still far from being proven and their generalization divides the scientific community.

If the WHO has repeatedly called for caution, on the African continent which has few means to fight against the virus, the authorities did not hesitate long.

In Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Africa, for example, governments quickly authorized hospitals to treat patients with this molecule. And a major study, like that of the now famous French professor Didier Raoult, has been launched in South Africa.

In Senegal, almost half of the infected have already been prescribed hydroxychloroquine, March 26, AFP professor Moussa Seydi from Fann hospital in Dakar told AFP. All the patients agreed, "without exception," he said.

A craze such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), President Félix Tshisekedi said last week that it was "urgent" to produce chloroquine "in industrial quantities". In South Africa, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies has pledged to donate 500,000 tablets to health officials.

"If we were to prove that chloroquine was effective, Africa, which imports the majority of its drugs, may not be the priority for industries," said Yap Boum, Africa representative for Epicenter, the research branch. from the NGO Médecins sans frontières (MSF).

The fear of missing

France has thus prohibited the export of the drug while Morocco has requisitioned all its stocks.

A fear of missing out that spreads down the street. "In the pharmacies of Yaoundé, you will not find any more, there is out of stock", adds Yap Boum. "The locals bought them, apparently without a prescription, which is dangerous," he said.

To the point that in Cameroon, the government published a note asking health professionals not to "give in to the greed" and not to "prescribe" the drug as a preventive measure.

In several large African cities, such as Abidjan (Ivory Coast) or Luanda (Angola), residents rushed to pharmacies to collect platelets. The same phenomenon has been observed in Malawi, where no case has been officially announced.

In Gabon, in Libreville, the queues in front of pharmacies are also getting longer, much to the chagrin of Armelle Oyabi, president of an association of people suffering from lupus, an autoimmune disease which is treated with hydroxychloroquine .

Since Saturday, she has been crane feet behind the counter of the only pharmacy that still has a stock. "I check that the medicine is delivered to those who need it," she says. "Without this treatment, we are not only weakened by lupus, but even more vulnerable to coronavirus."

Dangerous self-medication

Experts are worried about this popular frenzy and fear self-medication. "For people with heart disease, this can be fatal," warns Professor Boum. As for "overdoses, they can lead to death," adds Alice Desclaux, doctor-anthropologist at the Research Institute for Development (IRD) in Senegal.

In France, the Medicines Agency (ANSM) warned, Monday, March 30, that the treatments tested against Covid-19 could cause serious undesirable effects and should not "in any case" be used in self-medication, while three deaths potentially related to these treatments have been reported.

In Nigeria, patients poisoned with chloroquine were admitted last week to two hospitals in Lagos.

To obtain them illegally, Africans can however turn to street apothecaries. "Chloroquine has always been present in the informal circuit in Africa", explains Dr Desclaux, who adds: "It is still used to cause abortions" or to try to "commit suicide".

In a clandestine pharmacy in a district of Douala (Cameroon), Lucien, the manager, admits having already sold his stock: "Customers are asking for it, but it is not available immediately, it will be necessary to place an order."

"Be careful, prices have gone up," warns the trader: the tablet is now sold for 65 euro cents, four times more expensive than a few weeks ago.

A little further, a sixty-something teacher concedes that she bought some last week: "I'll keep it in case," she said.

True or false chloroquine? Impossible to know, but its appeal "will fuel the black market and fake medicines," says Professor Boum.

Already on Tuesday, Cameroonian authorities announced that fake chloroquine was in circulation in the country, and had notably been found ... in certain health centers.

With AFP

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