Doctor Believes Ivermectin Drug Can Help India Stop Covid-19 Second Wave

With COVID-19 taking a tiger grasp on the lives of the people in India and around the world, experts around the world, apart from the vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca (and others) have been looking for existing medications that can help.

Reuters

We¡¯ve seen experts recommend Hydroxychloroquine during the early days of the pandemic, followed by Remdesivir that helped in reducing the multiplication of COVID-19 in the patient¡¯s body in extreme cases.

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Another drug that was commonly used in Australia for the treatment of COVID-19 was Ivermectin. This drug is now being commonly used in various states in India. And Dr Surya Kant Tripathi, Head, Respiratory Medicine Department at King George Medical University in Lucknow believes this drug could help take control over the novel coronavirus.

Ivermectin: the wonder drug?

Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that has been beneficial in treating various kinds of tropical diseases, including onchocerciasis, helminthiases, and scabies. However, it was first created for veterinary use.

Discovered in the 1960s by Satoshi Omura, a microbiologist at Tokyo¡¯s Kitasako Institute & William Campbell from New Jersey, a culture of the bacteria dubbed Streptomyces avermictilis was proven effective against worms. Its active component dubbed avermectin was later chemically modified that made it safer and more effective and finally the compound was named Ivermectin, commercialised for animal use in 1981.

AFP

Campbell later urged his colleagues to use Ivermectin for potential treatment against onchocerciasis -- a disease caused by worms and transmitted in flies causing blindness in people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Initial trials in Senegal showed a positive response and in 1987 it was approved for human use, with over 3.7 billion doses donated by Merck labs distributed across the world.

The drug was also seen to be beneficial against lymphatic filariasis -- another disease caused by worms. The creators of the drug, Omura and Campbell were even awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 2015.

India giving Ivermectin to its COVID-19 patients

Indian medical institutions have started giving COVID-19 patients Ivermectin off-label. Medical institutions across the nation are also giving the drug as a prophylaxis against the novel coronavirus.

This is being seen in several states of the nation including Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Dr Surya Kant Tripathi, in a conversation with Financial Express has revealed that the drug has been in use for over nine months now without major side effects being reported.

Dr Surya Kant Tripathi

Currently, it is being provided to patients under home isolation and patients experiencing mild cases of the disease. Kant claims that this drug has anti-viral, anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and even anti-HIV properties.

He was one of the many experts from India who had submitted a white paper on Ivermectin last year to WHO, emphasising that the drug was seen to reduce the replication rate of the novel coronavirus by a thousand times. Only after this paper, did the UP government start to recommend the drug to its citizens.

Addressing the lack of available clinical data on Ivermectin, Kant states that around 8 trials out of the total 66 trials are currently underway in India, with none showing any major side effects.

Another study published in PLoS One, conducted by AIIMS Bhubaneswar has shown that Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis was associated with a 73 percent reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month.

WHO disapproved use of ivermectin on COVID-19 patients

On April 3, 2021, WHO made an announcement stating it recommended against the use of anti-parasite drug Ivermectin in patients with COVID-19. It only permits the use of the drug in patients who are a part of clinical trials, as of now there isn¡¯t enough data that shows its benefits.

According to WHO, 66 trials of Ivermectin have been registered, with over 60,000 participants. It indicated that more data on its impact on the pandemic could soon arrive. This notification came soon after European Medicines Agency warned medical practitioners from using this drug. The drug has also been recommended to not be used for COVID-19 cases by the US¡¯s FDA.

Disclaimer: While there have been several different types of treatments being given to COVID-19 patients across the world, there isn¡¯t any one drug that has worked as a sure-shot treatment yet. Don¡¯t self medicate and always consult your doctor or medical health professional for any symptoms.