We’ve Lost Time in the Race for a Covid-19 Cure

It’s been three months since the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern on its way to becoming a full-blown pandemic.

Despite much hype around several existing drugs, we still haven’t found a proven, evidence-based treatment for Covid-19. The stakes are clearly high, with a vaccine at least a year away, if at all, and countries around the world facing a potential second wave of infections as they start to lift draconian lockdown measures. A conclusive finding that one of the already-available medicines can reduce the viral load or severity of symptoms in infected patients would be a “game changer,” as French state medical adviser Jean-Francois Delfraissy said on local radio on Monday.

For now, we’re still waiting for convincing evidence of whether potentially promising drugs actually work. A European trial of four treatments, dubbed “Discovery,” began in March; it was due to give early results in the first week of April. That date was pushed back to this week after a slow start getting off the ground. In that time, tens of thousands of people have died.

It’s tempting to imagine the blame for lost time lies with bureaucratic red tape and squabbling scientists who prefer idle box-ticking to daring experiments with drugs on the pandemic’s front lines. That’s the narrative favored by supporters of Didier Raoult, the flamboyant French doctor who first flagged anti-malaria drug chloroquine as a promising treatment in February. While the scientific establishment waits for conclusive trial results, self-declared “maverick” Raoult has been using hydroxychloroquine (a less toxic derivative of chloroquine) on patients. U.S. President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the drug, and his pressure on regulators to fast track it, have made it a household name.