After nicotine shows positive results in fight against COVID-19, France restricts its sale

Paris, Apr 25: France has restricted the sale of nicotine substitutes after research published this week suggested that it may offer some protection against coronavirus.

The Health Ministry in a decree said that it aimed to avoid shortage of products such as nicotine patches for patients and to prevent the wrong use and overuse of substitutes used to fight the infection.

Pharmacies are not allowed to sell more than a month's worth of substitutes until May 11, when France would begin easing lockdown measures and re-opening schools. The decree also said that online sales were suspended.

A team of French researchers had written a scientific article which tends to show that there are fewer patients in the population consuming nicotine and therefore smokers that in the rest of the population. But beware this does not mean that tobacco protects. Tobacco kills, the article added.