the tribune
“Mr President of the Republic, Mr Minister of Health,
On several occasions, our associations, our patients, our deputies and senators, have challenged you, on the reality of many men, women, children affected by the long covid.
Over 200 scientific studies worldwide have demonstrated viral persistence and described debilitating and painful symptoms. Today, our patients are angry and tired of still being confronted with this deafening silence, this denial… You ignore the scientific and economic data.
As a reminder, on October 12, 2022, the director of the World Health Organization, said: “The world must act once morest the devastating effects of covid long”. What regarding the action in France? Or should we rather say inaction… whereas in 2020, Mr. President, you made a commitment to “leave no one behind”.
You, Mr Braun, since you took office in July 2022, you have had only these words: “We do not yet know if it is an illness”. How dare you as a doctor and minister discredit more than 2 million French citizens? It is unbearable that you keep quiet regarding the economic and health consequences of this virus, when other countries are worried regarding it…
New Zealand and the United States announce that long covid might be the main cause of disability in their countries. The German Minister of Health reports “that covid long is a major problem in society, with the potential to disrupt the labor market”, that “people affected often have to deal with an incurable immune deficiency”.
We would be to date 145 million affected by the long covid in the world, 2 million in France, without counting the children who are passed over in silence. Where are we with the platform promised by Olivier Véran since January 24, 2022 for census purposes in France?
Your compatriots, Mr. President, are sick and abandoned today. They need you ! Two years later the main symptoms have not disappeared. Less than 10% of long covids are recovered, according to multiple studies. Patients need research to move forward: France has only spent 9.5 million in France once morest 50 million pounds in the United Kingdom. Germany announces an investment of 100 million euros!
It is urgent that authorizations for therapeutic trials be granted but also publicly funded. Today, no therapeutic trial has started in France, unlike our neighboring countries.
These patients who are victims of their disease are now also victims of precariousness. It is still today an obstacle course to obtain support for long-term illness (ALD) or to keep it. But also to obtain recognition of his disability, a disability pension, protection at the professional level…
We are stunned by the lack of knowledge of this disease by general practitioners and specialists despite the recommendations of the HAS. We are perpetually confronted with contempt and disbelief, confronting medical wandering.
The sick are suffering, Mr President, Mr Minister. Sometimes more than 50 symptoms per day. A list so long and heavy with consequences that the words of Brigitte Autran, president of the Committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks (Covars) are all the more shocking: “These are unpleasant symptoms”.
The truth is quite different: a multitude of crippling, painful symptoms. Fathers or mothers often unable to resume their work, drive their children to school. Children too exhausted to attend classes and out of school. Patients who are often extremely deficient, malnourished, anemic, going as far as scurvy when others are in a wheelchair… Patients who have developed adrenal insufficiency, diabetes, asthma, which doctors are unable to stabilize and for whom these vital treatments are lacking in pharmacies! These patients sometimes arrive at the worst: suicide. Why such ineptitude? Such inertia?
Dear President, dear Minister, what would you do if it was your lives that had stopped since 2020, 2021, or even 2022?”
