Following French research that revealed the number of smokers who caught Covid-19 was four times less than non-smokers, frontline health workers in the country may be given nicotine patches.
The Pasteur Institute -- named for Louis Pasteur, who discovered the process of pasteurisation -- is a leading French research centre, which has been turning its attention of late to the novel coronavirus.
And while many would assume a respiratory disease is more likely to affect smokers than non-smokers, a study conducted by the Institute indicates exactly the opposite.
After testing some 700 teachers and pupils of a school in Crépy-en-Valois -- in Oise, one of the most heavily affected areas of the country some 36 miles northeast of Paris -- epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet and his team found that 7.2 per cent of smokers from among the adults were infected, compared to 28 per cent of non-smokers.
Mr Fontanet was quick to warn that the Institute was not encouraging people to smoke, however, and said that those who did risked "suffering more complications" from Covid-19.
The suggestion is that it is nicotine, rather than any of the other chemicals in cigarettes, which may help to stop people from catching the virus.
This comes just weeks after a Chinese study led Public Health England and the US' CDC to add smoking as a supposed "risk factor", with a spokesperson for the former suggesting that smokers were "14 times more likely to develop severe disease".
