Is the wormer Ivermectin currently considered a safe, effective treatment for COVID-19?

SAN ANTONIO – – You may have seen posts on social media about the medication Ivermectin. It was also a topic mentioned at a Senate Committee hearing.

There is a question currently circulating across the country: Is the wormer Ivermectin safe and effective to use as a COVID-19 treatment?

We passed the question through our KSAT Trust Index, where our teams consult doctors, researchers and experts on these types of debates.

“It is a wormer, so it is widely used in pets. We don’t have that many helminth infections in the United States, but when people travel to places with few resources, it is also approved for the treatment of worms in humans, ”says Dr. Jason Bowling, a hospital epidemiologist at University Hospital who also works. with UT Health San Antonio.

Ivermectin is one of the drugs that showed positive results in laboratories earlier this year to treat SARS CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

However, testing in humans has only just begun, and the National Institutes for Health and the Food and Drug Administration specifically say it has not yet been approved or safe for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

“I agree with the NIH’s recommendation that it should be done in a trial where they are really closely monitoring,” Bowling said.

Bowling calls Ivermectin promising, but is concerned to learn that doctors are prescribing it off-label, or that some people are even taking medications prescribed for pets.

“The problem is, if you took the level of Ivermectin that they use in these plates in the lab, it’s 10 times the dose that’s approved for humans,” he said. “Ivermectin is usually well tolerated, but when people have an inflammatory state like you would with a COVID infection, it can potentially cause neurotoxicity, side effects on your central nervous system. So you’re not going to hit those levels they’ve reached in the lab without worrying more about side effects. “

Dr. Bowling said that without completing current clinical trials specific for COVID-19, there is no way to determine safe doses, potential side effects, and of course, effectiveness.

For that reason, coupled with the lack of FDA approval or emergency use approval, the statement that ‘Ivermectin is currently considered a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19’ is labeled False on our KSAT Trust Index .

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