The use of the common insecticide Ivermectin has been associated with lower Covid levels and lower Covid deaths during treatment, especially in patients with severe pulmonary involvement.
Ivermectin has been recommended by numerous health experts to both prevent and treat Covid-19. It is not recommended by the FDA in the USA.
Let us try to present some research findings in an attempt to give readers some objectivity.
Ivermectin had shown promise with Covid-19 in vitro. Because of this, researchers in Florida (1) followed 280 Covid-19 patients in four Broward Health Hospitals in Florida during the period of March 15th to May 11th 2020. Some were treated with Ivermectin, others not. Although dosing guidelines were provided, ultimately the Doctor in charge made the final decision.
Of the 280 patients, 173 were treated with Ivermectin, and 107 not. Most patients across both groups also received either or both Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.
Mortality was 24.7% in the non-Ivermectin group but only 13.3% in the Ivermectin-treated patients. This was particularly marked in patients with severe pulmonary involvement with mortality down to 38.8% from 80.7% in the non-treated patients. No significant differences were found in length of stay.
Ivermectin is produced normally by the bacterium Streptomyces avermitilis and kills lice, worms, nematodes and mites by disrupting the fluid exchange through the insect’s cell membrane. The FDA approved the anti-helmintic drug in 2015, stating that it was ‘astonishingly safe’. In other studies it has even been shown to extend the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs (2). It has never been approved for use with viruses.
Paul Marik, MD, FCCM, FCCP, founder of the Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance and a professor and chief of the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, stated that ivermectin “is a safe drug that is exceedingly cheap. Ivermectin is highly active against Covid-19.”
Ivermectin – the Peru study
The country of Peru had a very high death toll from Covid-19 early in the Pandemic. Based on observational evidence, the Peruvian government approved ivermectin for use against COVID-19 in May 2020. After implementation, death rates in 8 states were reduced between 64% and 91% over a two-month period. Another analysis of Peruvian data from 24 states with early ivermectin deployment has reported a drop in excess deaths of 59% at 30+ days and of 75% at 45+ days. The report (10) was entitled “Real World Evidence”.
Ivermectin – known antiviral effects
In a large scale review of all the research over the past 50 years (8), Ivermectin was consistently seen to have antiviral, antimicrobial and even anticancer properties. Studies reported antiviral effects of ivermectin on RNA viruses such as Zika, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Hendra, Newcastle, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Sindbis, Avian influenza A, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus type 1, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in both in vitro and in vivo situations.
In the very first study to assess the antiviral effects of Ivermectin on Covid-19 in 2020, an in vitro study, the Vero/hSLAM cells infected with the SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 virus were exposed to 5 µM ivermectin in 48 hours, and a 5000-fold reduction in viral RNA compared with control was found. The results showed that treatment with ivermectin effectively killed almost all viral particles within 48 hours. The researchers concluded that the drug may have antiviral effects by inhibiting the importin (IMP) α/β receptor, which is responsible for transmitting viral proteins into the host cell nucleus.
Ivermectin – the FDA view
A remark in court by a lawyer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizing that doctors have the authority to prescribe ivermectin “off-label” to treat COVID-19 has largely been taken out of context. By September 2023, the FDA had not approved Ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of Covid; they are merely recognizing that they cannot stop Doctors using this approved drug, off-label.
The FDA state that all the research specifically on Ivermectin with Covid has shown it has no effect and that it has also no antiviral effects. One study they cite is the ‘TOGETHER study’ also referred to as the Brazil Study (11). If you rad the full research report you may find it somewhat confusing:
Three statements from this study should be noted.
i) (The researchers) found the treatment to be safe, with no significant differences in the incidence of adverse events between the patients who received ivermectin and those who received placebo.
ii) The relative risk of hospitalization or prolonged observation in the emergency department owing to Covid-19 in the ivermectin group as compared with the placebo group was 0.90 and the relative risk of death was 0.88.
iii) The relative risk estimates in the trial were compatible with reductions of up to 30% in the risk of hospitalization or prolonged observation and 51% in the risk of death with ivermectin.
The trial was a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, adaptive platform trial involving symptomatic SARS-CoV-2–positive adults recruited from 12 public health clinics in Brazil. the Dose given was 4 mg per 10 kg of body weight for the first 3 days. (In India and Thailand the dose recommended was 2 mg per 10 kg of body weight on days 1, 2, and 7; or for each of days 1-5.)
The conclusion was ‘treatment with ivermectin did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of Covid-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis of Covid-19′.
Ivermectin protocol for Covid-19
The Alliance have a protocol using Ivermectin: the I-Mask+Protocol.
For prevention, in high risk people: 0.2 mg/kg on day 1 and day 3, and weekly for 4 weeks;
For people newly diagnosed: 0.2 mg/kg on day 1 and day 3.
Both groups receive daily doses of Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Quercetin, Zinc and Melatonin.
At a Press conference in December 2020, Marik presented all the studies on Ivermectin, including a randomized controlled trial from Egypt where, in healthcare workers wearing masks and taking Ivermectin only 2% became infected, whereas in those not taking Ivermectin it was 10%. Ivermectin cut infection by 80%.
Pierre Kory, MD, MPA, an associate professor of medicine and a critical care physician at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, said that since the Research paper had been finished, even more studies had come in showing the same benefits.
In India, a matched case-controlled study amongst health care workers in contact with Covid-19 patients between September and October 2020 showed a 73% reduction in infection in those taking two doses of Ivermectin. Protection lasted approximately one month (3).
In March 2021, a British panel of health experts – The Evidence Based Medical Consultancy – convened a meeting of Health experts from 16 countries, in Bath, who produced a meta-analysis of 20 research studies on Ivermectin. They called for the immediate use of Ivermectin in both treatment of, and prevention of Covid-19 (4).
In 6 randomized trials pulled together in a meta-analysis by Andrew Hill of Liverpool University, Ivermectin was shown to reduce Covid mortality by 75%. The research was funded by the WHO (5).
Ivermectin used effectively in India
Ivermectin works at two levels. It works at the initial anti-viral stage and then at the anti-inflammatory stage. A group of senior Doctors at the Academy of Medical Education published a paper in July 2020 evidencing that Ivermectin could be a preventative agent and treatment. They pointed out that it could be used alone, or in combination with other drugs, and it was safe and very inexpensive (6). Dr Surya Kent is not surprised that certain Indian states have chosen to ignore the World Health Organisation. The drug is being used to treat people in home isolation and also for prevention. One small pill every two weeks seems to stop the disease infecting people.
With infection, the drug reduces the replication rate of the disease by several thousand times, he stated. “Not only Uttar Pradesh, but governments of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam too included Ivermectin in their protocol for the treatment of COVID-19,” Dr Kent added and 8 Clinical Trials are taking place right now in India, brought on by the fact that those regions using Ivermectin have significantly lower rates of Covid and Covid death than the rest of India according to Statista (7).
The FDA have warned against the use of Ivermectin in Covid cases, saying there is a need for more clinical trials to see if “there are any other benefits to patients” (?). The NIH and the WHO take the same stance.
In June 2023 the FDA finally acknowledged that Ivermectin did have beneficial effects against Covid -19 but stated that, if in vitro studies were extrapolated to human use, the doses would need to be extremely high.
Go to: Off-Label drug Ivermectin attacks cancer in many ways: A review
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References
- Use of Ivermectin is associated with lower mortality in Hospitalized Covid-19 patients; Juliana Cepelowicz Rajter et al; Chest 2021; Jan 159 (1)DOI: 10.1016/j.chest.2020.10.009
- Ivermectin stops cancer drug resistance
- 3. India health workers Ivermectin study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.29.20222661v1.full.pdf
- BIRD meeting of Worldwide Health Experts on Ivermectin https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FLCCC-Release-on-BIRD-meeting-2021-03-09.pdf
- Meta-analysis on Ivermectin and Covid
- Dr Kent – the situation in India
- Statista India
- Ivermectin: a systematic review from antiviral effects to COVID-19 complementary regimen; https://rdcu.be/deh3n
- The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. Caly L, Druce JD, Catton MG, Jans DA, Wagstaff KM. Antiviral Res. 2020:104787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104787.
- Real-World Evidence: The Case of Peru. Causality between Ivermectin and COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rate: Juan Chamie, October 2020, Researchgate
- Effect of early treatment with Ivermectin among patients with Covid-19; Gilmar Reis et al; May 5, 2022
N Engl J Med 2022; 386:1721-1731
