Professor Dominique Salmon-Ceron, infectious disease specialist at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris, announced on Friday, May 22, in Le Parisien , the launch of two studies intended to study the persistence and resurgence of symptoms in patients affected by Covid-19, in order to better understand these phenomena observed in recent weeks by several doctors and scientists.
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The first study, which began on Tuesday, is being carried out by a group of infectiologists called "Covidorl" and coordinated by the André Grégoire intercommunal hospital center, in Montreuil. It concerns the maintenance of symptoms which " in most cases regress quickly and disappear, " explains Dominique Salmon-Ceron in an interview with Le Parisien . “ I am thinking of fatigue which can last more than a month, chest tightness, this feeling of weight on the chest or even anosmia, that is to say the loss of smell. It begins to subside after 5 to 10 days, but we see patients, even with mild forms, in whom it persists for several weeks. "
This loss of smell, specifies the infectiologist, would persist in 10% of cases and could even persist to some extent for several months before the patient recovers his full olfactory capacities. The study conducted by the Covidorl collective aims to identify the reasons for this temporary disability, and to test a treatment on 120 volunteer patients, who will be offered " nose wash with corticosteroids ".
In addition, Professor Dominique Salmon-Ceron also announced that a second study called "Cocorec" was launched to more specifically understand the resurgence of symptoms in Covid-19 patients: not those who stay, but who reappear .
" Patients, including those who have not had a severe form, complain ," explains the researcher to the Parisian. In 55 patients, an Asian study showed five relapses. But this number is too small to draw any conclusions. This is very rare and would not exceed a few percent. "
The purpose of this second study is to understand if the patients suffered from other pathologies, or if they made " a bad immune response ", but also to know if they are still carrying the virus. However, the researcher refuses to speak of "chronic Covid": " I would rather say that it is a subacute infection, that is to say that it remains a few weeks. Several publications show a viral load that persists between 14 and 21 days but the longest, currently, even reports 63 days . ”
(Volunteers for the Cocorec study can participate in the study by writing to the address: anosmie.recherche@gmail.com ).
