Coronavirus: the words of a researcher trigger a controversy on social networks

Text by: RFI Follow

It is a sequence broadcast on the French channel LCI which did not go unnoticed. During a set, a researcher and a doctor discuss the BCG vaccine and the ongoing studies to treat the coronavirus thanks to this injection. And they also evoke the idea of ​​an experiment in Africa. What set off a virtual storm.

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" If I can be provocative, shouldn't we be doing this study in Africa, much like it was done for AIDS with prostitutes?" " This Thursday, this question from Professor Jean-Paul Mira, head of the intensive care unit at Cochin hospital, on the French television channel LCI, caused a wave of indignation on social networks.

In this video posted by a surfer on April 2, and which already has nearly 1 million views on Twitter, Jean-Paul Mira asks Camille Locht, research director at the National Institute of Health, in what measure a study on the BCG vaccine could be done in Africa where there would be no masks and no means to cope with the pandemic. The latter replied that a reflection is precisely underway to carry out this type of approach on the African continent.

70,000 mentions on Twitter

The video scandalizes on social networks and the subject has already been mentioned more than 70,000 times on Twitter in less than 24 hours according to the Visibrain measurement tool. The reactions are numerous and Internet users are generally shocked. Abdoulaye Coulibaly writes for example on Twitter: " Spain is more than 10,000 dead , take care of them, they need it more than Africa ".

Faced with multiple reactions, petitions and even reports to the Superior Council of Audiovisual, the National Institute of Health is summoned to explain. Inserm published a press release in which the institute for its part evokes a truncated video and which is therefore " the subject of erroneous interpretations ". " Clinical trials to test the efficacy of the BCG vaccine against Covid-19 are (...) about to be launched in European countries and in Australia. If there is indeed a reflection around a deployment in Africa, it would be done in parallel with these. Africa must not be forgotten or excluded from research, because the pandemic is global, ”says the Institute, among others.

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