Hydroxychloroquine, a drug promoted by the controversial Pr Raoult, can no longer be administered in hospitals in France against Covid-19, excluding clinical trials. The decree authorizing hydroxychloroquine was repealed on Wednesday May 27 by the government.

The decision comes after two notices published Tuesday. In the first, the High Council of Public Health (HCSP), approached by the Ministry of Health, recommended "not to use hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19" outside clinical trials, whether alone or combined with an antibiotic.

For its part, the Medicines Agency (ANSM) had "launched" the procedure of suspension "as a precaution" of clinical trials evaluating hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19.

>> To see, our Debate: "Chloroquine: to prescribe or proscribe it?"

Inefficiency and risks 

These opinions followed the publication on Friday in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet of a study pointing out the ineffectiveness and the risks of this drug for the patients of Covid-19.

The study had already prompted the World Health Organization to suspend clinical trials it conducts with hydroxychloroquine in several countries on Monday, as a precaution.

In France, apart from clinical trials, the use of hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19 was authorized in hospitals only and only for serious cases on the collegial decision of doctors.

Saturday, in the light of the Lancet study, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, had seized the HCSP so that he proposed to him "a revision of the derogatory rules of prescription", fixed by decree.

>> See our press review: "Chloroquine, the pill without a future?"

Professor Raoult, M. controversy

Patron of the Institut hospitalo-universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée-Infection in Marseille, Professor Raoult is the main promoter of hydroxychloroquine against Covid-19. It is used in patients with minor forms, in combination with an antibiotic from the macrolide family, azithromycin.

This earned him as many supporters among the general public and certain politicians as detractors in the scientific community. They criticize him for not being careful enough with a treatment that has not proven to be effective and could have serious adverse effects at the doses at which it is administered against Covid-19.

With AFP

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