Ivermectin is a low cost drug that is widely available worldwide. It was discovered by Satoshi Ōmura of Kitasato University and William Campbell of Merck in 1970 (See wiki page). Both of these guys got half a Nobel prize in Medicine, so it is certainly considered a significant and game changing breakthrough. It has been used on humans primarily for the treatment of worms and parasites, which cause things like River blindness, and so on. Let us start with some inforamtion.
- Firstly, the drug has been used since the 1980s to treat humans. It is considered a safe and well tested drug [Paper 1, Paper 2, Article 1, Article 2]; note it is easy to find the information for Ivermectin, as the drug has been tested and used safely by animals and humans for 40+ years. Of course, the exact levels of dose should be approved by a Medical doctor or Pharmacist.
- Secondly, despite a growing body of evidence world-wide, the FDA, despite ivermectin being an FDA approved drug, do not endorse it as a treatment for Covid-19. Read their statement here. Note the key paragraph from FDA statement: “The FDA has not reviewed data to support use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients to treat or to prevent COVID-19; however, some initial research is underway. Taking a drug for an unapproved use can be very dangerous. This is true of ivermectin, too.”. What is strange about this, is that they have not officially bothered to review the data, and the studies worldwide when it is available. Surely, a drug that is approved should be analysed immediately if there is a strong possibility it could reduce Covid deaths? Very odd.
- Thirdly, the European Medicines Agency also disregard its use for Covid-19 treatment here. Their key statement was: “Most studies EMA reviewed were small and had additional limitations, including different dosing regimens and use of concomitant medications. EMA therefore concluded that the currently available evidence is not sufficient to support the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 outside clinical trials”.
So what evidence is there that the drug has the potential to be useful. Please see a study presentation from Dr Andrew Hill, University of Liverpool UK here.
- Treatment costs using Ivermectin are between $1-2 per patient – very low.
- Clinical trials are only generally small world-wide, but there are many. Assimliation of the data starts providing a large overall data set.
- Common treatment dose is around 0.2-0.4mg/kg per day for 5 days. See here for the dosage calculator.
- Why are the FDA and EMA not prioritising the clinical trials for this treatment; a good and valid question given the potential impact it could have on people with moderate to severe Covid-19 symptoms?
The bottom line is most likely is there is no money in it! Ivermectin is low-cost, and Merck’s patent on Ivermectin expired in 1996.
- Here is a report from the UK financial times, explaining in simple enough terms what kind of impact this drug could have when used against Covid-19.
- here is a further report from the WHO on Ivermectin on its general under-use as a public health treatment worldwide.
- WHO’s offical use of Ivermectin for Covid-19 is here. Their key statement: “The group reviewed pooled data from 16 randomized controlled trials (total enrolled 2407), including both inpatients and outpatients with COVID-19. They determined that the evidence on whether Ivermectin reduces mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, need for hospital admission and time to clinical improvement in COVID-19 patients is of ‘very low certainty,’ due to the small sizes and methodological limitations of available trial data, including small number of events.”
Let us see how this develops as more data becomes available.