The “beep-beep” signaling a double call resounds constantly in the telephone of Johanna Clouscard. The president of the Lupus France association receives twenty, thirty… up to forty calls per day, all made by patients in distress. Because since chloroquine was presented as a potential treatment to fight Covid-19, it has become difficult, if not impossible, to find in the pharmacy the platelets of Plaquénil which contain its derivative, hydroxychloroquine.
However, for chronic patients, suffering from lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, it is a daily remedy. “Plaquénil is essential for us, it keeps us in good health and is sometimes vital. We can't do without it, ”warns Johanna Clouscard, 36, including 17 who swallow the tablets that relieve her lupus twice a day. An autoimmune disease, which as in 40,000 French people, sore his joints, weakens his skin, causes his kidneys to malfunction.
"The pharmacist in my village does not have any more, so I save my last box by reducing the doses," explains the young woman with the accent of her native Tarn. For other patients, the situation is worse. Some have none at all and are looking for them all over France. It is a cry of alarm to the laboratory that I launch for them. "However, Sanofi assures us:" There is no shortage of supply for this treatment. Stocks are manufactured and they will arrive in the coming days, “promises the French industrialist.
"We must reserve Plaquénil for those who need it"
We must go faster, enjoins Elisa, another patient. “My pharmacist called Sanofi but he was not delivered. I'm still missing a box for this month. And for the next month? "Worries the one who fears inflammatory attacks. Johanna agrees: “Plaquénil must be reserved for those who need it and in whom effectiveness has been proven. The rush to pharmacies is all the more unreasonable because, for the moment, studies do not say whether or not it can treat the coronavirus. Fortunately, since January 20, the drug is no longer sold without a prescription, but some are obviously getting it, ”she points out.
She herself has received emails, from France and abroad, from people who, fearing that she might be infected, offered to buy her prevention drugs! “I was also told that since I had the treatment, I couldn't be infected. It is all the more aberrant that I am a cashier and doubly exposed because of my fragility ”, says the one who enjoins: in the fight against the coronavirus, nobody should stay on the side of the road.