Story By: Ernest Bio Bogore, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency:  Newsflash

The French government has authorised the large-scale prescription of the malaria treatment Professor Didier Raoult claimed showed “spectacular results” against the coronavirus.

The treatment named Plaquenil, also known as hydroxychloroquine, was first put forward as effective against by COVID-19 by Raoult, who initiated a project by pitting two groups of 12 coronavirus patients against each other in the tests.

Raoult said: “We were able to observe that 90 percent of the patients who had not received Plaquenil were still carriers after six days, whereas when you used Plaquenil, after six days, there are only 25 percent of carriers left.”

The French government has now backed the scientist, decreeing yesterday (26th March): “Hydroxychloroquine and the combination lopinavir/ritonavir may be prescribed, dispensed and administered under the responsibility of a physician to patients suffering from COVID-19, in the health care institutions that care for them, and, for the continuation of their treatment if their condition so permits and with the authorisation of the initial prescriber, at home”.

Reacting to the government’s decision, professor Raoult thanked the government “for listening” and said in a press release: “It is better to treat people a little earlier because elderly people who come home with respiratory failure are very difficult to catch up with.

“And what we’re beginning to see is that they have little or no virus by the time they get to that stage. It’s all the inflammation-fighting reaction to the virus, there are lesions and at this stage, it is difficult to go about it.”

He also thanked Health Minister Olivier Veran for listening to him, saying: “In the context of the health emergency, hydroxychloroquine can be prescribed for the treatment of COVID-19. Thank you to Olivier Veran for listening.”

An unnamed patient who was treated with chloroquine said: “I have no history of heart disease, it’s obvious that if I did, my doctor wouldn’t have given it to me.

“So I accepted and took the treatment for six days, I finished it on 20th March. Now I’m fine, but I’m still in confinement, there’s no way I’m endangering anyone. I think I’ve thanked my doctor 200 times already.”

Renaud Muselier, a former government minister, also welcomed the government’s decision and reiterated his confidence in Raoult, saying: “Professor Raoult has written more than 350 international papers and filed 50 scientific patents.

“Our country is fortunate to have a researcher of his calibre, of global stature – he should be a Nobel Prize winner!”

Reports state that the distribution of the treatment will still be highly regulated. It can only be dispensed by “pharmacies for indoor use”, meaning, within the hospitals concerned.

The decree specifies that these hospitals are army hospitals, the National Institution for Invalids and the operational medical structures under the authority of the Minister of Defence deployed within the framework of the state of a health emergency.

Plaquenil and hydroxychloroquine preparations may be dispensed by pharmacies, but “only on the basis of an initial prescription issued exclusively by specialists in rheumatology, internal medicine, dermatology, nephrology, neurology or paediatrics or on the basis of a prescription renewal issued by any doctor”.

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