When you type his name in the Twitter search bar, Didier Raoult's account does not appear. However, since Tuesday, at 5:36 pm, the director of the IHU (Hospital-University Institute) Méditerranée Infection has launched out on the social network where he also introduces himself as “Professor of Medicine. Infectious disease specialist. Microbiologist ”.
Next to its name, the small blue acronym of official certification by Twitter allows to authenticate the account, while many false or parodic had multiplied in recent days. The difficulty in finding the account has already been the subject of criticism on the social network, some detecting a desire to hide it.
If he was not necessarily very active, Didier Raoult took advantage of his first four tweets to disseminate the links to the "Scientific Information Bulletin" of the IHU, a video posted on YouTube.
In his fifth post, whoever is convinced that he has found "the" most effective remedy for treating patients with Covid-19 highlights the countries that have "already included hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their therapeutic recommendations" .
Several states have already included hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in their therapeutic recommendations for the treatment of Covid-19 as soon as symptoms of the virus are detected. pic.twitter.com/T1lTe4iE6A
- Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier) March 25, 2020While his position continues to divide scientists and a support group (nearly 189,000 subscribers) was even born on Facebook, Didier Raoult saw his Twitter account followed, in just a few hours, by more than 50 000 subscribers. And the meter keeps going up.
Symbolically, it should be noted that the IHU of Marseille account that he directs, and which regularly reports on his positions, only has 7,700 subscribers while it was created in August 2016.
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This is also a tweet from the Marseille establishment which formalized the account of its director, Tuesday evening, two minutes before his first post.
Unique official account of Professor Didier Raoult. https://t.co/J0m7QdvDYk
- IHU Méditerranée Infection (@IHU_Marseille) March 24, 2020Didier Raoult only follows 5 people: Jean-Claude Gaudin (mayor of Marseille), Martine Vassal (president of the department), Renaud Muselier (president of the Region), Olivier Véran (Minister of Health) and Emmanuel Macron, the president of the Republic, while he left this Tuesday the Scientific Council gathered around it.
The release in the middle of the week of his book, “Epidemics, real dangers and false alarms, of avian flu at Covid-19” published by Michel Lafon, should lead to a renaissance for the infectious disease specialist. And for his Twitter account at the same time.
What is chloroquine, a miracle cure for coronavirus according to Professor Raoult?
