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Jury’s in for ivermectin: “No clinical significance.”

<p>At last, one of the largest and most rigorous clinical trials to test ivermectin as a COVID treatment has published its results in the prestigious <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>.</p> <p>The fervent belief for many was that ivermectin – originally a worming medication – would protect infected people from progressing to severe disease requiring hospitalisation.</p> <p>The trial found that ivermectin given in the first seven days after symptoms had no significant effect.</p> <p>For those in the know, the finding comes as little surprise. The so-called <a href="https://www.togethertrial.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TOGETHER trial</a> reported its primary results in seminars to other scientists and policy makers in <a href="https://c19ivermectin.com/togetherivm.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">early August</a> last year.</p> <p>The question is why it has taken so long to publish those results for the rest of us. The lack of clarity over the effectiveness of ivermectin has wreaked havoc. Many have foregone vaccination and even refused tested medical treatments, preferring to take ivermectin at <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/04/1034217306/ivermectin-overdose-exposure-cases-poison-control-centers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unsafe</a> high doses or even veterinary pastes in the belief that it was a cure. These beliefs have been propped up by doctors around the world, including those in Britain’s <a href="https://bird-group.org/who-are-bird/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BIRD,</a> the US-based Front Line COVID <a href="https://covid19criticalcare.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Critical Care Alliance</a>, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/18/doctor-who-advocated-covid-19-therapy-including-ivermectin-applied-for-patent-on-same-unproven-treatment" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Thomas Borody</a> and colleagues in Australia.</p> <p>“It is puzzling that the important and completed ivermectin arm has not reported its results [till now], says Paul Glasziou ,a professor at the <a href="https://iebh.bond.edu.au/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Institute for Evidence Based Healthcare</a> at Bond University, Gold Coast. “The use of preprints to rapidly provide clinicians and policymakers with results is vital for uptake of effective treatments as well as stopping ineffective and potentially dangerous treatments like ivermectin.”</p> <p>When the COVID pandemic hit in the early months of 2020, doctors were helpless to treat the patients dying in overflowing emergency rooms. A number of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) were urgently rolled out to test drugs on the shelf – so-called ‘repurposed drugs’. These included everything from <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32013-4/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">HIV drugs</a> to anti-inflammatory medications to tamp down friendly fire from a raging immune system.</p> <p>The fastest and most successful trial – dubbed RECOVERY and based at Oxford –  focused on saving the lives of hospitalised patients whose death rate was 25% or 40% if they needed to be placed on ventilators.</p> <p>In June 2020 RECOVERY posted a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.22.20137273v1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">preprint</a> – a paper hosted by a website but yet to be peer reviewed and published in a journal. It reported that the inexpensive steroid dexamethasone could cut the deaths of those on ventilators <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01824-5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">by a third</a>. The rapid dissemination of the results by preprint is estimated to have saved the lives of thousands of people.</p> <p>Another RECOVERY <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20151852v1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">preprint</a> also saved lives by reporting that the repurposed malaria and rheumatoid arthritis drug hydroxychloroquine – much feted by Donald Trump – not only failed to help hospitalised patients but appeared to make them worse. “Patients allocated to hydroxychloroquine were less likely to be discharged from hospital alive within 28 days,” the preprint reported.</p> <p>The TOGETHER trial led by Ed Mills at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, was initiated in <a href="https://www.togethertrial.com/trial-specifications" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">June 2020</a>. It also tested repurposed drugs but focussed earlier, in patients who were still in the first week of their illness. The idea was to find medications that would stop them going to hospital, to contain COVID as the mild-ish disease that was experienced by 90% of patients. Unlike RECOVERY, which sourced patients from British hospitals at the height of their pandemic, the TOGETHER trial sourced its patients from Brazil. This was necessary because the pandemic seems to move in waves and by the time the time RECOVERY started, the first wave in Canada had moved on, leaving few patients to recruit to the study.</p> <p>TOGETHER tested some of the same drugs as RECOVERY for infected people to use at home, including hydroxychloroquine and the HIV drug combination lopinavir/ritonavir. They were not effective, as reported in a paper published in the <em>Journal of the American Medical Association</em> in April 2021.</p> <p>Ivermectin was not included in the initial line-up of repurposed drugs. TOGETHER team member Craig Rayner, a Monash University-based clinical pharmacologist who modelled the effective drug doses for the trial, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-a-false-science-cure-became-australia-s-contribution-to-the-pandemic-20211013-p58zp3.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">advised against it</a> since the ivermectin dose required to kill the virus was <a href="https://theconversation.com/ivermectin-is-a-nobel-prize-winning-wonder-drug-but-not-for-covid-19-168449" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than 20</a> times the maximum approved dose. That was based on the reports of ivermectin’s virus-killing effects in the test-tube.</p> <p>But by mid 2020, ivermectin had replaced hydroxychloroquine as a popular COVID ‘cure’. Some trials showed it was effective; other didn’t – not a surprising situation in the early stages of testing of a drug. Expert pharmacologists like Andrew McLachlan at the University of Sydney declared a state of clinical ‘equipoise’, meaning the jury was out. Larger, gold standard RCTs were needed. (At the time, it had not yet been revealed that many of the studies showing ivermectin was effective <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/covid/data-detectives-dig-into-ivermectin-studies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">were fraudulent</a>.)</p> <p>Given the situation on the ground, the TOGETHER team decided to include ivermectin in their trial. “We had an obligation,” says Rayner. “We realised the answer was unknown.”</p> <p>The triallists recruited 3515 Brazilian patients from 12 health centres in the state of Minas Gerais. To raise their chances of detecting an ivermectin effect, the patients had to have at least one risk factor for serious disease, such as obesity or diabetes. These recruits were randomly allocated into different arms of the trial to test a number of different repurposed drugs against a placebo. The ivermectin arm treated 679 people and gave 679 people a placebo.</p> <p>Based on what appeared to be positive findings from smaller trials, ivermectin was used at a cumulative dose six times higher than the maximum approved dose – 400 micrograms per kg of body weight per day for three days. The maximum dose that’s prescribed for the parasitic disease strongyloidiasis is a single dose of 200 microgram per kg of body weight. The measurement endpoint for the trial was hospitalisation 28 days after treatment by the drug.</p> <p>By the beginning of August 2021, the researchers had their results. Ivermectin did not reduce the risk of hospitalisation. By contrast the cheap antidepressant drug <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00448-4/fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fluvoxamine did</a>, reducing the risk of hospitalisation <a href="https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/fluvoxamine-can-cut-covid-19-hospitalisations-by-30/123301/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">by 30%</a>.</p> <p>So, why did TOGETHER take until the end of March 2022 to deliver the <em>coup de grace </em>for ivermectin? RECOVERY by contrast delivered its verdict for hydroxychloroquine in July 2020, letting the world know it was pointless and dangerous to use it as a treatment for COVID.</p> <div class="newsletter-box"> <div id="wpcf7-f6-p187042-o1" class="wpcf7" dir="ltr" lang="en-US" role="form"> </div> </div> <p>One reason is that the TOGETHER trial had a much tougher remit than RECOVERY.</p> <p>RECOVERY tested hospitalised patients, who were easy to find being ‘captive’ in their hospital beds. Their death rate of 25% also made it easy to achieve statistically significant results.</p> <p>By contrast TOGETHER had to rope in the mildly ill from out in the community within seven days of their first symptoms. And given only 10% of them would ever develop severe disease, they needed to be picky, selecting those with a risk factor for severe disease such as obesity or diabetes. “We needed to have the potential to detect an effect,” said Mills.</p> <p>Moreover, while RECOVERY managed to roll out at lightning speed to catch the first COVID wave in the UK, by the time TOGETHER rolled out Canada’s COVID wave had receded, so they had to recruit in Brazil. And here they ran up against the problem of finding people who weren’t already self-medicating with ivermectin. That was partly circumvented by running the trial in Minas Gerais, a state in southeast Brazil where the use was not as widespread, says Rayner.</p> <p>However, once the TOGETHER group overcame all these obstacles, why did they not publish a preprint like RECOVERY?</p> <p>Mills says they decided to go the route of publishing in a major journal and that they did ‘air’ the data in talks.</p> <p>But journalists find it challenging to report on unpublished data since the scientists they rely on to provide independent opinions are loathe to comment on unpublished data.</p> <p>And the airing of the TOGETHER results did not have the necessary force to quell a degree of ivermectin hysteria that was seeing people eat veterinary worming pastes. In late August, the US FDA felt compelled to tweet: “<em>You are not a horse</em>. <em>You are not</em> a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. … Using the Drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19 can be dangerous and even lethal.”</p> <p>Rayner adds they did not expect it would take eight months till publication and were bound not to disclose a publication date or discuss the paper with journalists. “Had we known it would take this long, we might have considered a different route,” he says.</p> <p>Another reason for keeping their data out of the limelight till now is that the TOGETHER scientists’ reward for carefully carrying out these difficult trials has been harassment and threats from ivermectin devotees. “This is not a matter of science but psychology,” says Mills.</p> <p>“It’s not unusual to see a <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/overwhelmed-hate-covid-19-scientists-face-avalanche-abuse-survey-shows" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">death threat</a> in my inbox,” adds Rayner. “I’ve had to change my phone number. It’s pretty traumatising. We’re all feeling that way.”</p> <p>Being under siege has left the researchers media shy.</p> <p>“This report was not something I wanted to get ahead of. I fear what the release of the paper will bring,” says Rayner.</p> <p>The secrecy and drawn-out reporting of ivermectin trials is not limited to the McMasters group. Chris Butler, the leader of the ‘Principle’ ivermectin trial at Oxford, is similarly tight-lipped as is the leader of an NIH trial known as Activ-6.</p> <p>Neither of these groups responded to this journalist’s inquiry as to an expected report date.</p> <p>Perhaps these trials, which are based in the in the UK and US, have also found it difficult to recruit enough patients to get a statistically meaningful result.</p> <p>But their results, based in Western populations, will be important to compare to those of TOGETHER.</p> <p>Because TOGETHER did actually find a small, but not statistically significant effect, of ivermectin on hospitalisation. Could it be a true but tiny signal in the noise? Mills suspects that in some Brazilian patients, ivermectin was actually treating the underlying parasitic infections – and that improved the person’s ability to fight COVID. That’s a theory suggested by <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2790173" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this recent analysis</a>. If that’s the case, this tiny effect of ivermectin would be restricted to people who are fighting parasitic infections.</p> <p>But we will have to wait – <em>again</em> – for the PRINCIPLE and NIH trials to be sure.</p> <p><img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=187042&amp;title=Jury%E2%80%99s+in+for+ivermectin%3A+%E2%80%9CNo+clinical+significance.%E2%80%9D" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /></p> <div id="contributors"> <p><em><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/covid/jurys-in-for-ivermectin-no-clinical-significance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/elizabeth-finkel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elizabeth Finkel</a>. Elizabeth Finkel is editor-at-large of Cosmos.</em></p> <p><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p> </div>

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Channel 9 forced to issue apology to QEII

<p>Channel Nine has been forced to issue an apology to Queen Elizabeth after <em>A Current Affair</em> aired a segment insinuating Her Majesty was using ivermectin to treat Covid. </p> <p>Both the US Food and Drug Administration and Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration strongly warn against taking the “dangerous” drug to treat the virus, but it has frequently been championed by anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. </p> <p>On Monday night's episode of <em>ACA</em>, the program used stock footage of Stromectol, a brand of ivermectin, when interviewee Dr Mukesh Haikerwal was discussing approved medications that can be used for high-risk Covid patients.</p> <p>The segment centred around Queen Elizabeth, who tested positive for Covid on Sunday. </p> <p>Despite the footage being used in the segment, Dr Haikerwal, a Melbourne GP and former Australian Medical Association president, does not recommend ivermectin for use of treating Covid. </p> <p>The online segment has since been edited to remove the controversial drug, with Nine Network issuing an apology.</p> <p>“The shot was included as a result of human error,” the network said in a statement.</p> <p>“We were highlighting an approved infusion medication called Sotrovimab and the report accidentally cut to a shot of Stromectol – a product which contains ivermectin."</p> <p>“We did not intend to suggest Dr Mukesh Hawikerwal endorsed Stromectol. We’ve apologised to him this morning and he has accepted that apology.</p> <p>“We do not suggest the Queen is using ivermectin.”</p> <p>Before the segments edited, it was circulated widely online by ivermectin supporters in the anti-vaxx community. </p> <p>One clip still being circulated on Twitter, and has garnered more than 2 million views.</p> <p>Dr Hawikerwal used Twitter to share that the ivermectin images had been inadvertently used in the segment, adding he was grateful for people alerting him to the issue.</p> <p>“This video has been used a lot here in Brazil by anti-vaxxers who claimed that the Queen was using ivermectin to treat Covid-19,” one person wrote on Twitter to Dr Hawikerwal.</p> <p>“Thank you my friend for helping to clarify this misunderstanding that is being used to spread fake news here in Brazil. Ivermectin has become a political ideology here,” another wrote.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p>

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Ivermectin fan Joe Rogan thought an Australian comedy sketch was ‘propaganda’

<p dir="ltr">Former reality TV host and podcaster Joe Rogan shared a video on his Instagram on Monday night, writing, “Not only has Australia had the worst reaction to the pandemic with dystopian, police-state measures that are truly inconceivable to the rest of the civilized world, but they also have the absolute dumbest propaganda.”</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CVvyYXzgrD2/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CVvyYXzgrD2/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Joe Rogan (@joerogan)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The biggest problem with his caption was that the video was from the satirical ABC show<span> </span><em>Gruen,<span> </span></em>and Rogan had just made the embarrassing mistake of being unable to distinguish between satire and reality.</p> <p dir="ltr">An easy mistake to make for someone who can’t differentiate between human medicine and horse medicine; after contracting COVID-19, Rogan<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033485152/joe-rogan-covid-ivermectin" target="_blank">made sure his fans knew</a><span> </span>that he had included Ivermectin as part of his treatment, despite the FDA confirming it to be  ineffective against COVID-19.</p> <p dir="ltr">This isn't Rogan's first time expressing concern about the plight of innocent Australians who are living in a police state and being force fed dumb propaganda; he<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.ladbible.com/news/latest-joe-rogans-interview-with-yeonmi-park-is-being-called-his-best-ever-20210805" target="_blank">told North Korean defector Yeonmi Park that</a>, “There’s some crazy s*** going on right now where the army is trying to keep people inside in Australia."</p> <p dir="ltr">He continued, "They have full-on government lockdowns where the government is flying helicopters over the streets (and telling people) ‘go back indoors, you’re not allowed to be outside’, which is crazy.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The<span> </span><em>Gruen<span> </span></em>video features a man falling to the floor while having an allergic reaction, and a woman crouched over him, reassuring him while getting ready to use an EpiPen on him. He stops her and asks, “Wait, what brand EpiPen is that?”, “What’s in it?”, “Medicine? How long was it researched for?”, “What are the stats from Europe?”, and, most importantly, and why Rogan posted the video, the man wheezes as his throat is closing up, “What does Joe Rogan say?” before grabbing her by the shoulders, croaking out “Call Joe”, and dying.</p> <p dir="ltr">To an even slightly informed viewer, it’s an obvious send-up of anti-vaxxers who get their information from increasingly dubious sources like relatives on Facebook, Joe Rogan and other podcasters with no medical or scientific qualifications or expertise, or dodgy websites based in Eastern Europe. To Joe Rogan, it was another example of how the tyrannical Australian government was fighting back against COVID-19, apparently.</p> <p dir="ltr">A lot of his supporters seemed to also believe the sketch was genuine, with one commenting, “Australia is fine as long as you don’t watch the free TV”, and another, Australian jiujitsu black belt holder Kit Dale, commenting, “Australia has become weak”. Others pointed out that Rogan, who self-identifies as a comedian, should be able to take jokes about him since he’s more than happy to make jokes at the expense of others.</p> <p dir="ltr">Rogan eventually edited the caption to add, “apparently this is not a real ad. It’s from a satirical show.” Yeah Joe, we know. Thirty seconds of doing your own research would have told you that from the beginning.</p> <p dir="ltr">The video's creators continue to have a good sense of humour, with Paper Moose CEO Nick Hunter<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/joe-rogan-calls-gruen-transfer-covid-19-vaccine-satire-advertisement-australian-propaganda/ac0c5bb5-45fa-404f-9715-e56fdac74088" target="_blank">telling 9News.com.au</a>, "Gruen is a satirical show. The point of the video was to talk about some of the issues anti-vaxxers have and put it in a humorous context to show the ridiculousness of what is out there."</p> <p dir="ltr">"Its literally a demonstration of the problem we are trying to solve in the world today, so it was kind of hilarious that Joe Rogan reacted the way he did."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images</em></p>

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Head lice drug Ivermectin is being tested as a possible coronavirus treatment

<p>Researchers testing the head lice drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19 have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011">seen promising results</a> in lab studies.</p> <p>But the research is in its early stages and the drug is yet to be tested on people with COVID-19. There’s so much we don’t know, including the right dose and delivery method for people with coronavirus infection.</p> <p>So if you’re thinking of buying some just in case, think again.</p> <p><strong>What is Ivermectin currently used for?</strong></p> <p>Ivermectin is an antiparasitic agent that was isolated in the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/">1970s</a> from the fermented broth of a species of bacteria called <em>Streptomyces avermitilis</em>.</p> <p>The drug has been used since the 1980s to treat and prevent diseases related to parasites in humans, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2198752">pets and livestock</a>, and works by <a href="http://www.antimicrobe.org/drugpopup/Ivermectin.htm">paralysing invertebrate parasites</a>.</p> <p>In Australia, Ivermectin is mainly used topically in creams and lotions for head lice.</p> <p>It’s also used in tablet form to treat <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/strongyloides/gen_info/faqs.html">roundworm infection</a> and as a <a href="https://www.nps.org.au/radar/articles/ivermectin-stromectol-for-typical-and-crusted-scabies">second-line treatment for scabies</a> and <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rosacea/symptoms-causes/syc-20353815">rosacea</a>, a skin condition that causes redness and visible blood vessels in your face.</p> <p>The pharmaceutical company that makes Ivermectin, MSD, has also been <a href="http://www.msd.com/about/featured-stories/mectizan.html">donating the drug to developing countries</a> to treat the parasitic diseases river blindness and elephantiasis for the past 30 years.</p> <p><strong>What are the side effects and potential harms?</strong></p> <p>When used at the recommended dose, Ivermectin is generally well tolerated. Some of the common <a href="https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/ivermectin-1">side effects</a> include diarrhoea, nausea, dizziness and drowsiness.</p> <p>Less common is a lack of energy, abdominal pain, constipation, vomiting, tremors, rashes and itching.</p> <p>Ivermectin may also <a href="https://www.nps.org.au/medicine-finder/stromectol-blister-pack-tablets">interact with some medicines</a>, such as the blood-thinning drug warfarin, or <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/ivermectin-oral-route/side-effects/drg-20064397?p=1">worsen some conditions</a> such as asthma.</p> <p>Ingesting Ivermectin found in topical products for head lice is dangerous. If this occurs, contact the <a href="https://www.poisonsinfo.nsw.gov.au/">Poison Information Hotline</a>.</p> <p><strong>How might Ivermectin treat COVID-19?</strong></p> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104787">Recent laboratory data</a> from <a href="https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/Lab-experiments-show-anti-parasitic-drug,-Ivermectin,-eliminates-SARS-CoV-2-in-cells-in-48-hours">scientists at Monash University and the Doherty Institute</a> suggests Ivermectin is able to stop SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from replicating.</p> <p>Ivermectin has also been shown to stop other viruses (such as HIV, dengue, influenza and Zika) replicating, at least in the laboratory.</p> <p>The researchers found Ivermectin had an effect on SARS-CoV-2 after one exposure to the drug. Viral replication was shut down within 24 to 48 hours.</p> <p>It’s still not clear <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104787">exactly how Ivermectin works</a>. But it appears to stop the processes that allow proteins to move within the virus. These proteins would normally dampen the body’s antiviral response, allowing the virus to replicate and enhance the infection.</p> <p><strong>Where is the research on Ivermectin for coronavirus up to?</strong></p> <p>This research on Ivermectin has been conducted in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104787">cell culture</a> (cells grown in a laboratory) and is very preliminary. It provides some promise, but not evidence of an effective treatment in people (yet).</p> <p>Rigorous clinical trials in people with or exposed to COVID-19 infection are needed to establish the drug works and is safe to use, and in what doses. The laboratory studies of Ivermectin suggest higher concentrations of the drug may be needed <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2751445/">beyond a standard dose</a> to have an <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/75/4/827/5710696">antiviral impact</a>. So safety monitoring will be important.</p> <p>If Ivermectin is found to work on people with COVID-19, it needs to be studied as a potential treatment. So researchers need to know: does it prevent COVID-19 infection, reduce the severity of the associated illness, or improve the time to recovery? These are important questions to be answered before it becomes a treatment for COVID-19.</p> <p>On a positive note, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ddr.21666">re-purposing drugs</a> such as Ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19 is ideal because development can move quickly to clinical trial testing because we already know it’s safe to use in humans at currently recommended doses.</p> <p><strong>Should I buy some just in case?</strong></p> <p>No. It’s too soon to know if the promising laboratory test results will translate into a safe and effective drug for COVID-19 patients. The researchers were very clear <a href="https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/Lab-experiments-show-anti-parasitic-drug,-Ivermectin,-eliminates-SARS-CoV-2-in-cells-in-48-hours">Ivermectin should not be used to treat COVID-19</a> until further testing is complete.</p> <p>We certainly shouldn’t be stockpiling the drug to use later, especially since we don’t yet know the best way to take Ivermectin, including the right dose. And it could lead to unintended medicine shortages for people who need the drug to treat serious diseases caused by parasites.</p> <p><em>Written by Andrew McLachlan. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/head-lice-drug-ivermectin-is-being-tested-as-a-possible-coronavirus-treatment-but-thats-no-reason-to-buy-it-135683">The Conversation.</a> </em></p>

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