COVID-19: "I held on because I acted", the testimony of Dr. Rossi, infectiologist

You have been one of the first 1000 victims of the COVIR.How did you experience the disease?

Dr Benjamin Rossi: Like everyone, I was first afraid, because we did not know much about this pathology at the beginning of March 2020.For three days, I had a lot of fever, immense fatigue, this famous dry cough, vomiting, breath.When I felt better, I had lost taste and smell.On the internet, I then pealed the whole medical literature, but no one had yet described these disorders, which we learned later that they were in a neurological nature.After a week, I talked about it to colleagues and many brought me similar attacks in their patients.I then understood that these symptoms, which lasted in me a month and a half, were well linked to the disease.And above all I checked that without knowledge, which allows us to understand, everything is only panic.

How did you catch the virus?

By a Pakistani patient who could not be detected because at the beginning of the epidemic, only patients from China or Lombardy, Italy, had access to tests.Furthermore, it must be remembered that at the time, no one was carrying a mask ...

Has having been patient helping you in taking care of your patients?

What helped me was no longer afraid of catching the disease, since I had already had it.And it also allowed me to have physical contact with patients.I could take their hands, caress their hair, reassure it, tell them that I too had contracted the virus and that I was better.

During this first wave, your hospital is overwhelmed, deprived of material and human means ... The day, you see patients, at night you carry out studies.How did you keep?

By not looking at the patients suffer without doing anything, but by acting as a doctor, that is to say, treating.During my brief convalescence, at home, I had looked for information on possible treatments and noted that a particular drug, tocilizumab, seemed interesting to block the cascade of inflammatory reactions caused by the virus.Upon my return to the hospital, in accordance with our pharmacists, my colleagues and the patients, we ordered and experienced this treatment, to which we quickly added corticosteroids.All this, in the most perfect illegality, since as of clinical studies that we had neither the time nor the means of mounting, we were not allowed to use these drugs.It was very stressful, because we alone brought responsibility for our actions.But we took this risk because very quickly, we observed a 30% drop in mortality.So I held on because all together, in our inter -municipal hospital, we "did".And we did well.A year and a half later, we always apply the same protocol, a little adjusted thanks to the studies that have been conducted since.

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* Thank you to Dr Benjamin Rossi, author of "on the front line - a captivating dive in the heart of medicine" (Prisma editions)