Don’t prescribe Ivermectin for treatment of Covid-19: Regulatory bodies
Hyderabad: An anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, frequently advised by physicians for management of Covid patients, has come under scrutiny with regulatory authorities advising against its use. The drug is widely prescribed to manage positive patients and even as a prophylactic for Covid-19. On Tuesday, Chief Scientist of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Soumya Swaminathan said that […]
Hyderabad: An anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, frequently advised by physicians for management of Covid patients, has come under scrutiny with regulatory authorities advising against its use. The drug is widely prescribed to manage positive patients and even as a prophylactic for Covid-19.
On Tuesday, Chief Scientist of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Soumya Swaminathan said that WHO does not recommend the use of the drug. “Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. The WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for Covid-19 except within clinical trials,” she tweeted.
In fact, pharmaceutical giant MERCK, which manufactures ivermectin, in a statement posted on its website also recommended against the use of the drug in management of Covid positive cases. The pharma company said that analysis of ivermectin by its scientists has identified ‘No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against Covid-19 from pre-clinical studies’.
“There was no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with Covid-19 disease. There is also lack of safety data in the majority of studies related to use of the drug in treatment of Covid-19,” MERCK said.
Apart from Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), which supervises medicines in European Union, had said that ivermectin drug is not recommended for treatment Covid-19 patients.
The ivermectin drug is usually prescribed against parasitic worms and some forms of the drug are also used for treatment against head lice. It is often used as a deworming agent for a host of animals also.
“The FDA has not reviewed data to support use of ivermectin in Covid-19 patients to treat or to prevent Covid. Taking a drug for an unapproved use can be very dangerous. This is true of ivermectin, too,” FDA said.
In the month of March,the EMA said it has reviewed the latest evidence on the use of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of Covid-19 and ‘concluded that the available data do not support its use for Covid-19 outside well-designed clinical trials’.
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