The 48-year-old patient infected with the new coronavirus who left Bordeaux University Hospital on Thursday, after 22 days of hospitalization, was treated with remdesivir, a "promising" antiviral, said his medical team on Friday.
Remdesivir, from the American Gilead, "acts directly on the virus to prevent its multiplication", explained to the press Professor Denis Malvy, head of the tropical diseases unit and the traveler of the Pellegrin University Hospital.
It is a "small molecule capable of gaining all of the compartments of the body and which we know it diffuses perfectly into the lungs, target organ of the disease," added the doctor, adding that the drug is administered by intravenously for ten days and the patient "perfectly tolerated" it.
A choice in consultation with WHO
It is "today in the state of knowledge the most convincing promising candidate for an evaluation," he added, adding that the choice of this drug had been made "collegially at national level, in consultation with WHO ”(World Health Organization). It will be the subject of a comparative therapeutic trial in China with the coordination of the WHO "in the days to come"
Professor Malvy mentioned a "second candidate", lopinavir used against HIV-AIDS, combined with ritonavir, which has been the subject of a trial in China, the results of which are awaited.
The patient will be followed regularly
The Bordeaux native of Chinese left the university hospital "without clinical signs" and is "no longer carrying any trace of the presence of the virus", in the current state of knowledge, added the doctor. It will continue to be followed regularly.
“We will review it over a period of a few weeks for a new face-to-face clinical and radiological evaluation. Maybe also a blood test. And then he will be followed over the next few weeks to build his resociability and the sustainability of his physiological state, "said Professor Malvy.
The man returned to France on January 22 from China. He had notably passed through Wuhan where the Covid-19 epidemic appeared at the end of 2019. He was hospitalized the next day.
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A doctor, infected in France and hospitalized in isolation at the Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, is also following an experimental treatment, based on molecules used "in other viral diseases".