During the daily press briefing organized in the morning of this Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Hechmi Louzir announced that the Institut Pasteur de Lille (France) had just successfully tested a known molecule on the coronavirus.
According to him, the Institut Pasteur de Lille thinks he has found a medication that could help fight COVID-19 from the start of the disease. If this discovery is to be confirmed by a clinical trial, the treatment could however be launched in early 2021.
Dr. Hechmi Louzir said, however, that this drug, the name of which will not be disclosed at the moment, is being tried in France. As soon as the results and efficiency of this treatment are proven, it will be applied in Tunisia, he hinted.
Regarding this molecule in question, researchers from the Pasteur Institute would have discovered the active principle of an effective existing drug to kill the virus.
“It would be a medication that we take as soon as possible, as soon as we confirm that we are infected with the virus. The idea being to reduce the viral load as quickly as possible for two reasons: the first, to reduce the contagion period of infected patients, and the second prevent these patients from going to more serious symptoms, “said Terence Beghyn, researcher and president-founder of Lastart-Up Apteeus, specialized in the repositioning of drugs, report French specialized media.
From the start of the health crisis, last March, a research team bringing together researchers from several laboratories from the Pasteur Institute of Lille (CNRS, Inserm, University of Lille, CHU de Lille and the Apteeus start-up) mobilized in the search for treatment against COVVI-19.
More than 2000 molecules already used for other diseases have been selected as being able to provide an effective response against the virus. “And at the beginning of the summer, one of them turned out to be particularly powerful against the virus and has since been a series of tests. This molecule already with a marketing authorization, the protocol will allow a faster delay in its implementation, ”explains the Pasteur Institute of Lille with Topsanté.
The cultures were then analyzed by Doctor Sandrine Belouzard, from the CNRS, one of the only specialists in coronavirus in France.
“We have demonstrated in vitro (in the laboratory) that a molecule present in the active principle of an existing drug is active against the coronavirus. We tested it on human cells in the lung and the results were very promising, ”said Professor Benoît Déprez, scientific director of the Pasteur Institute; Interviewed by La Voix du Nord. He adds: “We have proven that its active ingredient can kill the virus at a concentration thirty times lower than that which is basically proposed …”
Researchers prefer, for the time being, the name of this molecule marketed in small quantities and currently prescribed for a completely different pathology, in order to preserve the stocks.
