The French government on Wednesday May 27 repealed the derogations which allowed this drug to be prescribed in hospitals to treat patients with severe forms of Covid-19.
No patient in France can no longer be treated with hydroxychloroquine. The derogations which authorized the prescription of this treatment for patients suffering from a severe form of Covid-19 in hospital – and which had been used by several establishments – were repealed on Wednesday May 27. There will also no longer be any administration of this drug in the context of clinical studies since this is what the drug agency announced on Tuesday, May 26.
These decisions mark the end of a controversy that quickly took hold after the outbreak of the epidemic in France. The promotion of the use of this treatment in the context of the care of Covid-19 patients was the credo of Professor Didier Raoult who had conducted trials in his eyes conclusive in his Marseille institute.
Despite numerous studies going in the opposite direction by showing that the risk/benefit balance of this drug was far from favorable, several hospital practitioners had chosen to use hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 patients in their establishments. This is the latest study published on this treatment by The Lancet which ended up winning the conviction of the health authorities in France and around the world – the WHO had asked for the interruption of all the studies in which it was a partner – by providing convincing evidence on the ineffectiveness and the dangerousness of this treatment which can lead to patient death.
An anti-malaria drug that represented hope
Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, had represented hope when at the time when the health crisis was going through its most acute phase, doctors and patients were distraught, others worried about the absence of any treatment for this disease. which has probably not yet revealed all its secrets. President Emmanuel Macron, himself, had gone to visit Professor Raoult in his institute in Marseille, which some had interpreted as a guarantee given to the defender of the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with Covid-19.
It is ultimately scientific research and the rules it provides for judging the effectiveness or negative effects of a drug in the context of studies that will have had the last word after nearly two months of controversy and at the time where the epidemic seems to be regressing in a lasting way in France, two and a half weeks after the start of deconfinement.
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