No, hydroxychloroquine is not finished. While France and WHO have put a brake to its use, many countries continue to bet on it. Among them, the Senegal. The countries of West Africa will continue to treat the sick, the Covid-19 with hydroxychloroquine in a hospital setting, has confirmed this Wednesday, may 27 the director of the emergency operations Centre health. “Treatment with hydroxychloroquine will continue in Senegal, the team of professor Seydi maintains its therapeutic protocol,” wrote the AFP Dr. Abdoulaye Bousso. If the department has not yet officially responded, Abdoulaye Bousso said that it was the position of the health authorities. How do you explain that the use of chloroquine be less debate in Senegal than in France ?

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A selection of public health

Inspired by the work of Didier Raoult, of which he is not a close, professor Moussa Seydi, infectiologist in the first line in the management of contaminated, early made the choice to generalize the prescription of hydroxychloroquine in a hospital environment. “It is a molecule that is very well known and has been used in the treatment of malaria. In Europe, malaria is not a public health problem, then people know less and pose more questions. This is a normal reaction, î he told to Marianne. A choice that has been validated at the highest level of the State. “In Africa, we are well acquainted with the chloroquine through his version Nivaquine that we all consumed in quantity during our youth in the schools. It was a means of prophylaxis against malaria “, has recently commented on the president Macky Sall, in an interview with the French media France 24 and RFI.

promising

To validate the strategy, the senegalese authorities have released the end of march an analysis that clearly shows a reduction in the duration of hospitalization, while the country is facing a constant increase of cases. Professor Seydi invokes a more rapid reduction in the viral load in the patient treated with hydroxychloroquine, and a good tolerance to the drug. He points out that it is not administered in a hospital setting, with the patient’s consent and accompanied with an electrocardiogram. And the results of the preliminary analysis validates its strategy. They show that, out of 181 patients, the median duration of hospitalization was 13 days for patients who received no treatment, 11 for those who received hydroxychloroquine alone, 9 for those who received hydroxychloroquine associated with azithromycin (an antibiotic), and even 8 for those who have consulted early and started the treatment within 24 hours.

But Senegal, like other countries on the continent, remains relatively spared by the pandemic. He said 3 253 cases of contamination and recorded 38 deaths since the 2 march. “The Chinese have told them what they saw, Americans were told what they had seen. The Americans will be based on what they have seen and the Chinese are going to build on what they have seen. Me, today, I based on my preliminary results, not final results, in order to continue doing what I’m doing. But someone else may find something else. For example, in Europe, there are countries where it has been found that hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine is dangerous, and it must be stopped, ” analysis professor Seydi on the RTS.

At the age of 56, this infectiologist, which runs for nearly seven years the center for infectious diseases of the hospital of Fann at Dakar, has the full confidence of the leaders and populations. After studies in France and in the United States, the child of Khombole in the region of Thiès, is income work in the country, with her own people. “The specialists, who guide our direction in the treatment of the sick, have nothing to envy to international experts. The State made them completely trust, ” insisted the minister of Health, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, in the daily Liberation.

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on the other hand, it has been decided that patients are asymptomatic or little symptomatic, would be greeted in mid non-hospital settings, on sites like a hangar from the old airport the international Léopold-Sédar-Senghor in Dakar or on the air force base in Thies (West). The goal is to ” not to make our hospitals the hospitals Covid and the ability to continue to treat other patients “.

The debate rises between the two countries

The study of nearly 15 000 patients, and published Friday in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet shows, according to its authors that chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine do not benefit the hospitalized patients and increase the risk of death and cardiac arrhythmia. It recommends not to prescribe it outside of clinical trials. Following this publication, the world health Organization has announced to suspend as a precaution the clinical trials it conducts with its partners in several countries. “I don’t know if elsewhere hydroxychloroquine kills, but here it saved a lot of people “, has tartly responded Didier Raoult, calling it “half-assed” study.

On the social networks in senegal, the debate that is playing in France has observed with dismay. “Do you understand that France is the only country in the world where journalists and pseudo-doctors tear still on chloroquine so that the epidemic is over ? They are mad without messing around. In Morocco, Senegal, USA, UK, nobody talks about it, but it is administered “, if that annoys a user.

“chloroquine bother !” says Abubakr Diallo on Afrik.com. “It is the opinion of all the Senegalese. Beyond the Senegal, the French are supposed to. And the reason can’t be financial, because this molecule does not cost anything. And treated with this molecule, the coronavirus, cow milk might be expected of some practitioners and other pharmaceutical companies, will not have anything brought as spin-offs. Today, the WHO, which derives its main resources from pharmaceutical companies, can only defend the interests of these industries. And since the beginning of the epidemic, while Africa was “wonders” in the face of Covid-19, with healing to the shovel and call into question the forecasts of apocalyptic the WHO, the latter advised against the african solutions “, writes the journalist of senegal.

To better understand the situation, the French mep Valerie Boyer of the LR group met with Amadou Sall, the director of the Pasteur Institute of Dakar. And this last one called ” do no ideology in this area, but to remain pragmatic.”

Evidence that the debate is far from closed, Amadou Sall, just like the experts of senegal are waiting for the results of the next evaluation which will be done with a sample of 350 patients, and which should allow to confirm or not the strategy being pursued up here.

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