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There has been an uptick in searches for ‘ivermectin tablets’ and ‘ivermectin for humans’ as people explore treatment options for COVID-19. Here’s what are the experts are saying.

With more and more people asking search engines about ‘ivermectin tablets’ and ‘ivermectin for humans’, it is clear that the interest in this drug and its rumoured use to combat COVID-19 is not going away. But what are the experts saying?

Recently, a study that more than thirty health experts have authored calls on government health authorities to permit alternative treatments, including ivermectin, for COVID-19.

Alternative Treatments: A Unique Approach

In a recently published journal article, experts from across the United States of America, as well as from Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, Cuba, Finland, and Norway, called on the public health authorities combating the COVID-19 pandemic to permit the use of various alternative treatments in parallel with coronavirus vaccines.

The treatments examined in the study included remdesivir, glucocorticoid, favipiravir, ivermectin, and interferons. Significantly, the research focussed on outpatients (those who do not need hospitalisation but who help spread the disease nonetheless) rather than on “the late stage of disease in hospital” (505). The experts explained:

The focus of treatment of COVID-19 has been on very ill hospitalised patients. Outpatients who do not require hospitalisation are told to home quarantine with no effective treatment.” (506)

While ‘universal immunisation’ is being pursued by government authorities worldwide, the authors advise that “vaccination alone may not be sufficient to stop the disease as the virus continues to propagate with newly developing variants” (506). Hence, the study sought to consider alternative treatment options that might be effective for COVID patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

The experts involved in the research reviewed the major academic sources of trial results, ultimately analysing twenty-one separate publications to assess the relevant drugs’ efficacy.

Ivermectin Among Drugs Considered ‘Low-Risk’

After reviewing the literature, the article recommended that treatment agents “with known safety profile[s] and preliminary evidence of possible benefit[s]” be authorised by health officials for use. Importantly, Ivermectin tablets were among the drugs considered safe and potentially effective for use in the fight against COVID-19.

Quoting Indian case-control studies conducted before February 2021, the paper noted that two doses of ivermectin in less severe COVID-19 cases “yielded a 73% reduction in infection of healthcare workers” (509-510).

Based on the available evidence from randomised controlled studies, the experts concluded that ivermectin could benefit preventative healthcare and COVID-19 treatment (512).

Is Ivermectin a Safe Treatment for COVID-19?

In anticipated response to objections about the safety of these drugs, the authors said the following:

There are strong arguments to avoid emergency use of agents until trials are completed and analysed, but the agents suggested are not new. Most are drugs like zinc, ivermectin, colchicine, inhaled glucocorticoids, and the interferons, marketed and available for other conditions and with well-known safety profiles. (513)

Thus, they argued that the drugs assessed were well-established and safe. Therefore, in light of this, they urged governments to provide outpatients with ‘therapeutic intervention’ options like ivermectin tablets (513).

In conclusion, the study authors wrote the following impassioned plea:

In this pandemic crisis, we appeal to public health authorities to change the dynamic to outpatient care to use agents with low-risk and potential benefits like inhaled glucocorticoids, ivermectin, interferon, favipiravir, and colchicine. (514)

Further, they stated that it was “unwise to rely solely on… mass vaccination to stop SARS-Cov2.” (514)

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This study was published earlier this year in the prestigious Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs journal. This journal publishes “rigorously peer-reviewed review articles and original papers on drugs in preclinical and early-stage clinical development, providing expert opinion on the scope for future development”.

You can read the original article here: Binh T. Ngo, Paul Marik, Pierre Kory, Leland Shapiro, Raphael Thomadsen, Jose Iglesias, Stephen Ditmore, Marc Rendell, Joseph Varon, Michael Dubé, Neha Nanda, Gino In, Daniel Arkfeld, Preet Chaudhary, Vito M. Campese, Diana L. Hanna, David E. Sawcer, Glenn Ehresmann, David Peng, Miroslaw Smogorewski, April Armstrong, Rajkumar Dasgupta, Fred Sattler, Denise Brennan-Rieder, Cristina Mussini, Oriol Mitja, Vicente Soriano, Nicolas Peschanski, Gilles Hayem, Marco Confalonieri, Maria Carmela Piccirillo, Antonio Lobo-Ferreira, Iraldo Bello Rivero, Mika Turkia, Eivind H. Vinjevoll, Daniel Griffin & Ivan Fn Hung, ‘The time to offer treatments of COVID-19’, Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs, vol. 30, 2021, pp. 505-518, https://doi.org/10.1080/13543784.2021.1901883, accessed 30 August 2021.