Ivermectin: why a potential COVID treatment isn’t recommended for use

While the search continues to find a cure for COVID-19 the results of a range of studies have resulted in changes to the recommendations on the right drugs to provide patients suffering from the illness.

The European Medicines Agency and the United States National Institutes of Health have recently announced that a treatment previously considered to be promising that is the antiparasitic drug Ivermectin is not recommended for routine management of COVID-19 patients.

Despite these deliberations Ivermectin's support is being discussed on social media as well as in WhatsApp groups There are reports that the drug may be removed on purpose. Some have dubbed it the new hydroxycholoroquine", after a treatment that received a significant amount of online support but was found in trials to be ineffective against COVID-19.

Ivermectin is what it is, where to buy ivermectin for humans and why have the national agencies refused to accept it?

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What is Ivermectin?

Ivermectin was first discovered in the 1970s by bacteria found in a soil sample from a forests along the Japanese golfing track (no another source for it has been identified).

In the years that followed Ivermectin's efficacy and its derivatives for the treatment of parasitic worm infections changed both veterinary and human medicine which led to the award of a Nobel Prize for its discoverers, William C Campbell and Satoshi Omura.

For humans, Ivermectin is used in tablet form to treat roundworm infections which cause diseases like river blindness. It is also used as a cream for the treatment of the common skin condition, papulopustular acne.

It has advocates However, there isn't enough proof to justify its use against COVID. HJBC/Shutterstock

However, ivermectin is primarily employed to treat veterinary parasites particularly gastrointestinal worm infestations. It is therefore easily available and fairly inexpensive.

Since ivermectin is widely utilized in veterinary rather than human medicine, it is the case that there was a need for caution from the US Food and Drug Administration decided to issue a caution in April 2020 about the making use of veterinary medications for patients suffering from COVID-19.

What are the reasons it could be employed for treatment of COVID?

What happened to a medicine that is primarily intended to control intestinal parasites of cows turn out to be relevant to physicians treating patients suffering from COVID-19?

In the early months of 2020, a study was published (before it was read by other researchers) that showed that ivermectin inhibits reproduction of virus SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19 when tested in a laboratory. This was just one of the studies in the last fifty years to prove that the antiparisitic medication could also have antiviral properties.

There are two major ways the drug might stop coronavirus reproduction. One is that it can stop coronavirus from exerting a suppressive effect on cells' own natural antiviral reactions. It is also possible that it blocks that "spike" protein on the surface of the virus from binding to receptors that allow it get into our cells. In addition to the anti-inflammatory effects that are evident from the efficacy of ivermectin in rosacea, they could be a sign of beneficial effects the case of a virus that causes significant inflammation.

The initial findings were utilized as the basis for numerous guidelines for the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, specifically for Latin America, which were later revised.

What is the reason it's controversial?

Since the time, there have been numerous studies of the possibility of ivermectin being a therapy for COVID-19.

In the latter half of 2020, a group of researchers in India could summarize the findings of four smaller studies of ivermectin used as an alternative treatment for COVID-19 patients. The review revealed statistically significant improvements in survival for patients receiving ivermectin in combination with other treatments.

The authors, however, stated that the caliber of the evidence was poor and these findings should be taken with cautiousness. Like most of the time in reviews of small studies, the study stated that more studies are needed to establish whether ivermectin actually was clinically effective.

Ivermectin is good for cows but is it effective for COVID? Farlap/Alamy Stock Photo

The controversy then erupted in response to an article written from the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group of researchers and doctors that advocates to use Ivermectin.

The article, which summarizes a number of studies on the effects of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients, was tentatively accepted to be published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology in January 2021. However, it was dismissed as unsuitable for publication and was removed from the website of the journal in March. The editor of the journal stated that the evidence used in the article was not sufficient and the authors were not appropriately marketing their own ivermectin-based treatment.

A larger, randomised clinical trial was released on March 20, 2021. It found no impact of ivermectin in extending the duration of symptoms in adults suffering from mild COVID-19. The authors noted that the results do not support the use of ivermectin for those patients, but they also stressed that larger studies were needed to establish if this drug could have other benefits.

Why why isn't it not

While some studies suggest benefits from Ivermectin in some cases, most did not. The study was summarized in a report by the National Institutes of Health, with severe limitations due to the small sample size and issues with the study's design.

The National Institutes of Health and the European Medicines Agency judged, in light of these research studies, that there is not enough evidence to recommend the use of Ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.

Further studies are in the process of being conducted. A large, multicentre study started in February to assess the effectiveness of ivermectin , as and metformin (an anti-diabetes drug) along with fluvoxamine (an antidepressant) in preventing COVID-19 progress.

It's therefore too early to conclude that ivermectin is not a viable option for COVID-19 treatments. Based on available evidence its use is not suggested.