Coronavirus: clinical trial with sea worm blood begins this Monday in France

Measuring between 10 and 15 cm, this worm is best known for its small twists visible on the beaches. Its hemoglobin is capable of carrying 40 times more oxygen than human hemoglobin. FRED TANNEAU / AFP

Text by: Pierre Olivier Follow

Research is active all over the world to find remedies for coronavirus. In France, as of Monday, a new clinical trial will begin. It consists in administering to patients a solution from the blood of a sea worm with oxygenating properties 40 times higher than our red blood cells.

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Sea worm hemoglobin raised in Brittany injected into patients: the trial will be carried out on ten patients in acute respiratory distress due to Covid-19 to literally breathe new life into them.

The Covid at some point will actually get to the level of the pulmonary alveoli and will prevent these patients from having good ventilation. This means that the lungs are going to be infected with Covid and these patients can lose up to 70% of their capacity for respiratory exchanges between air and blood. And so these are patients who are going to be injected with this molecule which is a molecular respirator, it is in fact a large molecule of hemoglobin which is capable that there is 40 times more oxygen than a human hemoglobin. And the purpose of this test is really to see what is the effective dose that will allow them to switch to new found breathing, in fact a respiratory capacity with this molecule ", explains Franck Zal, director of the Hemarina company at origin of the project.

The technique has already proven itself, especially for kidney and face transplants. If it proves effective, the Hemarina company ensures that it can deliver 20,000 doses in the coming weeks.

Some infectiologists, however, wonder if complications could not arise in these often elderly patients.

Also read: Coronavirus: the state of the world facing the pandemic Sunday April 5

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