In a hospital in Pau, a room dedicated to coronavirus screening, March 10, 2020. – Quentin Top / SIPA
- A clinical trial to evaluate four experimental treatments for the coronavirus begins this Sunday.
- Piloted in Lyon, this project will include 3,200 European patients, including 800 French.
- In particular, as part of this trial, hydroxychloroquine will be tested, the efficacy of which is highlighted by Professor Raoult of the IHU in Marseille.
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Thousands of patients by coronavirus are going to be included in the experiment. From this Sunday, a European clinical trial,
piloted in Lyon and coordinated by Inserm, is starting to evaluate experimental treatments against the coronavirus.
This research project, dubbed Discovery, the French part of which is funded by the Ministries of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and of Health and Solidarity, will make it possible to test “four experimental therapeutic strategies which could have a effect against Covid-19 in light of current scientific data “, we learn from Inserm this Sunday.
“We analyzed the data from the scientific literature concerning the SARS and MERS coronaviruses as well as the first publications on SARS-COV2 from China to come up with a list of antiviral molecules to test”, adds the public research organization French. In the coming weeks, the efficacy of remdesivir will be evaluated, as will that of lopinavir in combination with ritonavir. Hydroxychloroquine, whose effectiveness is highlightedby Professor Raoult of the Marseille IHU as part of a limited study, will also be tested as part of the Discovery project.
In concrete terms, 3,200 patients from Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, including at least 800 French people, will be included in this clinical trial. The treatments will be tested on patients who are positive for Covid-19, of course, hospitalized in a medical or intensive care unit.
Multiple patient groups
To measure the effectiveness of treatments, patients will be divided into different groups. One of them will benefit from standard care, provided today. The other patients will benefit in addition to this care, from one of the molecules tested. “Patients and doctors will know what treatment is being used. The analysis of the efficacy and the safety of the treatment will be evaluated 15 days after the inclusion of each patient, “said Inserm.
This research project, led by Florence Ader, infectious disease specialist at the Croix-Rousse hospital at the CHU de Lyon and researcher at the International Center for Research in Infectious Disease, will involve five French hospitals: Bichat hospital in Paris, Lille, Nantes , Strasbourg, Lyon. Twenty hospitals should be affected in a second step.
