Didier Raoult will be in Senegal from this Sunday, March 27, 2021, for a working visit of a few days, according to information obtained by Emedia.sn. The specialist of infectious and tropical diseases, famous for his statements and positions often subject to controversy, is a regular in the Senegalese capital where he was born in 1952.
This will be his first visit to his country of birth since the outbreak of the Covid-19 health crisis. Accustomed to collaborating with leading Senegalese specialists such as Professor Souleymane Mboup of the IRESSEF or Doctor Cheikh Sokhna Paludologue at the IRD, in the VITROME unit and in charge of the IRD observatories in Senegal, Didier Raoult has often mentioned his attachment to Senegal.
In an exclusive interview with Emedia, last April, the Infectiologist and Microbiologist told himself: I was born in Dakar, in the Main Hospital. I lived in the building that my father built as a professor of tropical medicine. He was right in front of the Institut Pasteur in Dakar and the Aristide Le Dantec hospital. So, my destiny was found. I lived at the Plateau, in Dakar opposite the beach of Anse Bernard which I kept very endearing memories. After that, my father went back to France. It was too complicated because life was so beautiful where we were. Luckily, I was asked to run a research unit in Senegal 12 years ago.”
While he describes himself as a fisherman of viruses and microbes, Didier Raoult is one of the most divisive characters in the world of science and medicine. His positions on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the novel coronavirus have, for a long time, fed the chronicle around the world around the management of the pandemic. This is its position and the results announced in its Hospitalo-University Institute in Infectious Diseases of Marseille, IHU Méditerranée Infection, which partly served as justification to the Senegalese health authorities for the use of hydroxychloroquine in anti-Covid 19 treatment.
Beau travail des équipes médicales sénégalaises. Les autorités algériennes, marocaines, turques et tant d’autres rapportent l’efficacité d’un traitement qu’ils ont très tôt proposé à leurs patients.https://t.co/nBvAhn7kaq
— Didier Raoult (@raoult_didier) May 3, 2020
Despite the differences in his positions, Didier Raoult nevertheless remains a specialist recognized by his peers. In 2010, he won the Grand Prix de l’Inserm (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) for his entire career and was one of eleven members of the French government’s Covid-19 Scientific Council.
Source : Emedia
