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PARIS :
Researchers in France will evaluate whether nicotine could be used to treat Covid-19.
“It is an interesting possibility,” Health Minister Olivier Veran said on France Inter radio. “We will know more soon.”
Doctors at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris observed that few patients hospitalized with Covid-19 were smokers. They also speculated that the new virus may involve receptors in the body that respond to nicotine. To investigate whether nicotine might have a protective mechanism, they will conduct clinical patch tests, including one for healthcare workers.
French scientists’ approach runs counter to conventional thinking about nicotine: The World Health Organization has said that smoking probably increases the risk of complications from Covid-19.
The idea is not to make more people addicted to nicotine or to smoke, which kills around 70,000 people each year in France.
“There are nicotine substitutes that can be developed in laboratories that would avoid its addictive effects,” said Veran.
Separately, Veran noted a French study of 170 Covid-19 patients that suggests that people develop enough antibodies to have immunity to the virus.
