"Primum non nocere. In other words: "First do no harm." Thus spoke Hippocrates in his treatise on epidemics in 410 BC. With this maxim, Professor of clinical pharmacology Milou-Daniel Drici would like all hospitals and doctors to think about it before prescribing treatment with hydroxychloroquine for their patients with Covid-19.
If this cardiologist is also worried, it is because the undesirable effects, in particular serious affections sometimes fatal on the heart of certain patients, do not stop increasing in France in connection with the taking of this drug. Snowy-Daniel Drici knows what he is talking about.
Director of the Nice-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur pharmacovigilance center, since March 27, he has identified 54 cases of cardiac disorders across France, four of which led to the death of patients taking this treatment. "And this is only the tip of the iceberg," says the doctor, very critical of the willingness of some of his colleagues to administer hydroxychloroquine in the hospital systematically to all those tested positive at Covid-19.
Malaise, palpitations, loss of consciousness
"Except in the context of clinical trials to assess this drug or in the case of patients hospitalized in serious condition with the collegial agreement of doctors, it should not be prescribed," insists the cardiologist. The potential undesirable effects of this drug are numerous: nausea, vomiting, rashes but also dermatological, ophthalmological, psychiatric attacks…
The pharmacovigilance center has noted cases of discomfort, palpitations or sudden loss of consciousness. In the most serious cases, the patient suffers from cardiac arrhythmia: your heart starts to beat in an anarchic and disorderly way. "In eight out of ten cases, it stops spontaneously but in 20% of cases, it can lead to cardiac arrest", underlines Milou-Daniel Drici.
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At the Institut hospitalo-universitaire (IHU) Méditerranée Infection, Professor Didier Raoult and his teams still cling to this drug and claim that hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, an antibiotic, acts positively on sick patients. The Marseille infectious disease specialist repeated it to the President of the Republic on Thursday by presenting him with a new study conducted on a thousand patients who would prove the "effectiveness" of the treatment.
The irrational virus
But several publications claim the opposite. And more and more white coats are worried. The French Medicines Agency has also warned that this combination "exposes you to an increased risk of an abnormality in the heart's electrical system". "There is no evidence yet that this treatment is effective in treating the coronavirus, but the risks associated with taking these drugs have been proven," insists Professor Drici. Especially in case of overdose. Hence the message from the health authorities.
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"In any case, these drugs should not be used either for self-medication, or on prescription of a city doctor, or in self-prescription of a doctor for himself, for the treatment of Covid-19", warns the Agency national drug safety. Several serious cases following self-medication have been identified in France and abroad. "While we should keep a cool head, there is something irrational and very worrying about this drug, alarms Milou-Daniel Drici, who cites the example of a doctor who administered the treatment itself, as a precaution. He suffered two syncopes twenty-four hours apart. "