Do nicotine patches have a role to play in the prevention of Covid-19? To answer this question, a French study will be launched at the national level.
A nationwide study
The project, renamed Nicovid Prev, is managed by Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) and coordinated by Prof. Zahir Amoura, the Head of Department at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. A study had already started last April. It involved 350 hospital patients and suggested that smokers were less likely to contract Covid-19. The AP-HP then declared that “nicotine would have preventive virtues against Covid-19“. Today, the study will extend to the whole of the territory and will be carried out on more than 1,600 nursing staff (medical and non-medical), distributed in 15 hospitals. They are non-smokers or former smokers who have quit for more than a year. These people have not contracted the disease and work in contact with patients with or without Covid-19. The inclusions will start in the hospitals of Pitié-Salpêtrière and Charles-Foix and will extend to the Mulhouse and Sud-Alsace Region Hospital Group and the Gonesse hospital center in the next few days.The duration of treatment will be 4 to 5 months.
A protective effect of nicotine
According to the AP-HP, “recent data suggest the major role of nicotine in the observed effect and suggest a possible benefit from the use of nicotine substitutes“. In the AP-HP press release, dated November 20, the authors indicate that the French epidemiological data”show a significantly lower rate of active smokers in the COVID-19 population than in the general population “ and “the use of nicotine replacement therapy in smokers is associated with a significant decrease in the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19Nicotine would block the penetration and spread of the coronavirus in cells, thus playing a preventive role.
However, we must not start smoking
Not all scientists are unanimous on the protective effect of nicotine for Covid-19. Some studies show that smokers are more likely to develop severe forms of the disease and to transmit the virus (through smoking or sharing a cigarette). In addition, the AP-HP recalls that “smoking is the leading cause of preventable death again in 2020 and there is no reason to hope for a positive risk / benefit ratio of smoking in the fight against COVID-19. Tobacco kills much more than it protects “.
