Sandworm blood could offer hope to virus victims

The blood of sandworms could soon offer a ray of hope to French doctors struggling to save patients in respiratory trouble because of the new virus.

Two leading Paris hospitals are starting tests in the coming days of a treatment based on hemoglobin from sandworms, also known as lugworms.

They hope it can eventually be used to increase oxygen levels in the tissue of struggling virus patients.

Biology researcher Franck Zal first got the idea years ago from watching worms at low tide on the coast of his region of Brittany and wondering how they could breathe on land and in water.

It turns out their blood stores oxygen for up to six hours between tides.

"I discover that this molecule is its little oxygen tank that allows it to hold six hours until the next high tide," said Zal, who is the CEO of biotechnology company Hemarina.

His company now has a worm farm on the Atlantic island of Noirmoutier.

The treatment he subsequently invented has been given to dozens of kidney transplant patients and was found to improve the oxygen levels of the organs.

Doctors at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital and Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris will now test whether it is safe to inject directly in human blood, and whether it oxygenates tissue.

It is a phase 1 clinical trial approved March 27 by the French government drug agency ANSM and cleared by a government ethics committee April 4.

There is no control group for the first 10 patients; they will include a control group if it goes to the next phase.

It will be used on 10 intubated patients in the "final stage" of life, people in severe respiratory distress in which oxygen is not reaching their tissue, said Dr Laurent Lantieri.

It will be administered one patient at a time, in graduated doses, with medical meetings involving multiple doctors before each new dose.

The treatment will only be given to patients whose families have given consent.

Lantieri drew global attention for performing the world's first face transplant, and he works at Pompidou hospital.

He suggested this hemoglobin to colleagues struggling with virus treatment.

"Our principle is to try to use it in RDS (Respiratory Distress Symptom), pulmonary infection. In this event there is very low oxygen that gets through the lungs to the blood," Lantieri said.

"Our hypothesis is that if we put this molecule in the veins it will capture and diffuse more oxygen to the body. We hope that using this molecule the patient will have less time in ICU and less time with a ventilator," he explained.

The treatment is unusual and is only starting the early stage of testing, but given the urgent need to find virus solutions Lantieri said it was worth trying.

"It's a moment when we have to think fast. It's a moment when we have to think out of the box," Lantieri said.

He warned that doctors need to remain cautious even as they scramble for virus solutions.

"There are strict ethical rules in terms of informed consent when you give a medication to a patient and you try a new drug. And this informed consent is even more difficult when the patient cannot give the informed consent and you have to ask to the family," he said.

"These rules have to be respected, it is very important," Lantieri added.

As of Sunday, France had reported more than 8,000 deaths related to the virus.