Didier Raoult, a doctor who is very controversial for his numerous statements since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, will he still be able to lead the Marseille University Hospital Institute for Infectious Diseases?

The director-general of Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, François Crémieux, confirmed Thursday to AFP the will of the AP-HM to “turn the page“Didier Raoult at the head of the IHU Méditerranée Infection and to find a successor for him after his retirement at the end of August.

Joined by AFP, the new boss of Marseille public hospitals, confirmed the information from the newspaper Le Monde according to which the AP-HM but also Aix-Marseille-University (AMU), founding members of the IHU and members of its board of directors, intended to launch in September the recruitment procedure to find a successor to the controversial Professor Raoult.

Read also: Covid: a cluster at the IHU of Professor Raoult?

Didier Raoult wishes to remain in his post

As of August 31, Mr. Raoult, promoter of a controversial treatment of Covid-19 patients via a dual therapy combining hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, will have officially reached retirement age as a university professor-hospital practitioner.

If Didier Raoult, aged 69, has made a request to combine employment and retirement and continue to lead the IHU, as the AP-HM confirmed to AFP on Thursday, it would therefore be refused from next to the hospitals of Marseille and AMU.

But the final decision on this request will have to be taken by the 18 members of the IHU board of directors, including the AP-HM and AMU therefore, but also its four other founding members, the Research Institute for development, the Army Health Service, the Mérieux Institute and the French Blood Establishment.

The professors’ comments qualified as “unacceptable”

Professor Raoult was talked about again this week via a video on the Youtube site of the IHU, stating in particular that “Iceland has more cases now than ever“while this is the country”who was the most vaccinated of all developed countries” or “overall, vaccine protection against variants is modest in terms of epidemiology“.

Words qualified as “unacceptable“by Professor Jean-Luc Jouve, president of the AP-HM medical commission, for whom that”gives ground to grind to the conspirators and other antivax“. And the professor reminded AFP that 95% of Covid-19 patients currently in intensive care at AP-HM are not vaccinated.

Asked specifically about the case of Professor Raoult, by the daily La Provence, on July 9, on the occasion of his arrival at the AP-HM, François Crémieux recalled that “the IHU does not benefit from a right of exception” and “when we prescribe drugs, we do so in accordance with the recommendations of the High Authority for Health and scientific societies“.

“The objective is also to ensure the future of the IHU“he insisted.