IVERMECTIN ON COVID-19
According to recent research from Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, ivermectin, a parasite-fighting medicine used in third-world nations, could help shorten the duration of infection for those who get coronavirus for less than a dollar a day. Since 1987, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved ivermectin. The drug's creators were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015 for their treatment of onchocerciasis, a condition caused by a parasitic roundworm infestation. It's been used for a variety of conditions over the years, including scabies and head lice. Furthermore, multiple clinical studies in the last decade have begun to demonstrate its antiviral effectiveness against viruses ranging from HIV and the flu to Zika and West Nile. The medicine is also very cost effective. According to a study published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics, ivermectin for alternative treatments costs roughly $0.60 to $1.80 for a five-day course in Bangladesh. In Israel, a day can cost up to $10, according to Schwartz.
Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of Sheba's Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease, launched a randomized, controlled, double-blinded research from May 15, 2020, to January 31, 2021, to see if ivermectin may reduce viral shedding in nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. In Schwartz's study, 89 adults over the age of 18 who had been diagnosed with coronavirus and were staying in state-run COVID-19 hotels were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 50% received ivermectin and 50% received a placebo, based on their weight. Three days in a row, an hour before a meal, they were given the pills. The subjects were checked using a routine nasopharyngeal swab PCR test to see if their viral load had decreased by the sixth day, which was the third day after the treatment ended. Every two days, they were swabbed.
By day six, nearly 72% of subjects treated with ivermectin had tested negative for the virus. Those who received the placebo, on the other hand, only tested negative 50% of the time.Furthermore, the study looked at culture viability, or how infectious the patients were after six days, and found that only 13% of ivermectin patients were infectious, compared to 50% of the placebo group - nearly four times as many.
“First and foremost, our research reveals that ivermectin has antiviral activity,” Schwartz said. “It also demonstrates that a person has an almost 100 percent chance of becoming noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to these patients spending less time in isolation. This has the potential to have a massive economic and social impact.”
Other similar studies, while not all of them conducted to the same double-blind, placebo-controlled criteria as his, indicated a positive effect of ivermectin treatment, according to Schwartz. He noted that his research did not establish that ivermectin is useful as a preventive, meaning that it can prevent sickness, nor that it reduces the likelihood of hospitalization. Other research, he added, have found similar evidence.
“A review by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance summarized findings from 27 studies on the effects of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection, concluding that ivermectin ‘demonstrates a strong signal of therapeutic efficacy' against COVID-19,” according to a study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Therapeutics.
IVERMECTIN, however, is not without controversy, and despite high coronavirus levels around the world, neither the FDA nor the World Health Organization have approved it for use in the fight against the virus.
Prof. Ya'acov Nahmias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has questioned the drug's safety. In an earlier interview, he stated, "Ivermectin is a chemical medicinal drug with severe hazards associated with it." “We should be extremely cautious about administering this type of drug to treat a viral infection that the great majority of people will recover from without it.”
The FDA announced on its website that it had received "several reports of patients who required medical assistance and were hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin." It added that the "FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans." “For some parasitic worms, ivermectin tablets are approved in very particular doses, and there are topical (on-the-skin) versions for head lice and skin problems like rosacea. Ivermectin isn't an antiviral medication (a drug for treating viruses). Taking high amounts of this medicine is risky and can result in significant consequences.”
Merck Co., which manufactured ivermectin in the 1980s, has been the most vocal opponent of the medicine. “Company scientists continue to carefully analyze the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety,” the company said in a public statement regarding ivermectin on its website in February. Our study has shown no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic impact against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies, no substantial evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and a concerning absence of safety data in the bulk of investigations.”
Oxford University announced a big trial on the effectiveness of ivermectin last month. Schwartz said he became interested in ivermectin research about a year ago, "when everyone was seeking for a new medicine" to treat COVID-19 and a lot of work was being put into studying hydroxychloroquine, so he decided to join the effort. “I decided to go for it because ivermectin was on my shelf, we were using it for tropical infections, and there were clues it might work,” he added.
Around the same time, researchers in various parts of the world began looking into the medicine. However, when they began to observe positive outcomes, no one wanted to share them, according to Schwartz. He stated, "There is a lot of opposition." “We tried to publish it, but three publications turned it down. Nobody wanted to know about it. You have to wonder why when the rest of the world is suffering.” Large Pharma doesn't want to deal with it since "this medicine will not yield any big economic profits," he claimed.
And delaying the use of ivermectin could lengthen the time it takes for the globe to learn to live with the virus, he added. The researchers said in the American Journal of Therapeutics, "Identifying existing treatments that can be re-purposed against COVID-19 [and] that already have a known safety profile over decades of usage could play a critical role in slowing or even stopping the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic." “Using repurposed drugs may be especially significant because vaccination may take months, if not years, for a large portion of the world's population, particularly among low- and middle-income populations.”
This is credit to MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN as the author of this work.
https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-scientist-says-covid-19-could-be-treated-for-under-1day-675612
90 serious Covid-19 patients treated with the new drug, 93 percent were released in five days or less