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Covid-19: why the hope of finding a miracle treatment is allowed

2021-02-04T19:40:16.695Z


While vaccination is slipping, drug research is picking up steam. While many have disappointed so far, scientists c


Of course, it carries with it "the phenomenal promise" of a less gloomy future.

“Revolutionary”, also predicted the WHO in December.

So, to swear by the vaccination against the Covid-19, the treatments have been eclipsed, almost forgotten.

But faced with a massive immunization campaign that is struggling to take off, and the emergence of tough variants, this other part of research against the virus is coming back to the fore.

Already, by a hope: that of monoclonal antibodies.

Behind this complicated name hides a therapy that arouses enthusiasm to counter the most severe cases of Covid.

Then, because politics get involved.

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Emmanuel Macron has made it known in recent days: he wants progress, and is ready to pay the price.

Moreover, a recurring appointment was added to his agenda.

The President himself leads follow-up meetings on salaries, the last of which was held on Tuesday.

Present: around ten eggs, specialists in new diseases, and others in monoclonal antibodies and interferons.

The disappointments follow one another

“Finding new treatments remains essential.

Despite the vaccination, people will continue to be sick with severe forms.

They need effective drugs ”, pleads Professor Dominique Deplanque, pharmacologist and director of clinical research at the University Hospital of Lille (North).

The task promises to be difficult.

For a year, disillusions have been linked.

The therapeutics brandished as potential "miracles" have made no difference.

"On this side, there is nothing new", slice Frédéric Adnet, the emergency manager of the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis) and researcher at Inserm, expert in clinical trials .

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The hydroxychloroquine touted by Professor Raoult?

“In the oubliettes,” he said.

The tocilizumab on which the Hospitals of Paris were betting?

"Totally buried".

Remdesivir?

" It does not work ".

A last blow of bamboo came to fall on this drug developed by Gilead: last Thursday, the large Discovery study which evaluates since the beginning of the crisis the most promising molecules, decided to stop testing it, "for lack of proof of its effectiveness.

"

As for colchicine, extracted from the colchicum flower, its explosive results were hardly announced in January by Canadian researchers when they were widely denounced for their lack of rigor.

Disappointments that are half surprising, when we know that after fifty years of relentless research, there is still no solid cure for the flu.

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Coronavirus: colchicine, a promising drug in the fight against the epidemic?

Would everything be so dark?

" No!

replies Dominique Deplanque.

Not only are there advances, but a treatment is well and truly validated.

Since September, dexamethasone, from the corticosteroid family, has become a standard of care for hospitalized patients.

It reduces mortality (-21%) and the risk of having to go to intensive care.

It's not nothing.

“Clearly, faced with the Covid, we die less today than yesterday.

Multiple entries possible in the Discovery trial

And for tomorrow, there is also hope.

"The list of potentially interesting molecules is long", estimates the pharmacologist.

After Germany which has ordered 200,000 doses for the tidy sum of 400 million euros, it is France which is closely interested in monoclonal antibodies.

This Monday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) tells us that it has set up an accelerated process to more easily assess this "promising" treatment.

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And according to our information, the antibodies could also soon join the Discovery trial, to be tested on patients at high risk.

Other candidates are in the starting block: the antiviral molnupiravir.

And even antidepressant drugs from the fluvoxamine class which have potential anti-inflammatory effects.

After the rush at the beginning, the research returns to its first love: leaving time to time.

Source: leparis

All life articles on 2021-02-04

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