"At very high doses, chloroquine can kill." Professor François Bricaire does not go there by four paths when asked about the most serious side effects associated with taking this drug, presented by some as a potential remedy for coronavirus. If this eminent member of the Academy of Medicine is also alarmist, it is because several cases of "cardiac toxicity", sometimes requiring "hospitalization in intensive care", were reported by the health authorities of New Aquitaine. These were people with Covid-19 symptoms who had taken hydroxychloroquine for self-medication, after the hope aroused by the studies of Professor Didier Raoult in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). So without medical supervision, and without first consulting a doctor.
"Self-medication should not be done under any pretext" insists Professor Bricaire, former head of the infectious diseases department of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, who has long prescribed chloroquine to treat patients with malaria . "When they were prescribed it, they had to be placed under surveillance because this drug can cause heart rhythm disturbances."
"As with other drugs, if you take too much, you risk big," also warns Professor Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, infectious disease specialist at Henri-Mondor hospital in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). Hospitals have also stopped prescribing certain patients because they found abnormalities in their electrocardiogram. ”
"I had to swear to respect the prescription to the letter"
The taking of this medication must be subject to “monitoring” and an appropriate medical “prescription” “to avoid the occurrence of serious adverse events but also hospitalizations in intensive care which are currently precious”, underlines his next to the regional health agency of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The American health authorities have also warned the general public that they should not take self-medication. An Arizona resident who ingested chloroquine phosphate, which is used to disinfect aquariums, died.
Derived from the antimalarial chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine is known in France under the name of Plaquénil. It is especially used against lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. This drug, Sandrine, a forties from Hauts-de-Seine with lupus, knows him well. "I took it for a long time within the framework of a very strict study protocol," explains the young woman. I had been warned that this could cause major risks and I had to perform electroretinograms to check that my eyesight was not affected by the drug because, when it happens, it is irreparable. ” Sandrine remembers that her doctor had "made her swear to respect her prescription to the letter". "I will never take this self-medication treatment in my life," she says.
VIDEO. Chloroquine debate: "Patients must benefit from this approach"
In France, trials on hydroxychloroquine are currently being carried out by Professor Didier Raoult. But while the Marseille researcher is convinced of the effectiveness of this treatment against Covid-19, the two studies he presented have been criticized by some of his peers. The latter believe that these trials do not comply with standard scientific protocols. Pending the results of the "Discovery" study, an ongoing European trial on four treatments, including hydroxychloroquine, France authorized "as an exception" the administration of this molecule against Covid-19. But only in the hospital, and in the most serious cases.
