Feb. 18 (UPI) —<\/span> Treatment with the dewormer drug ivermectin failed to prevent patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 from progressing to serious illness, a study published Friday by JAMA Internal Medicine found.<\/p>\n Of 241 patients in the study with mild to moderate symptoms treated with the veterinary medication, 52, or 22% developed severe COVID-19, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n Meanwhile, 43 of 249 patients, or 17%, who received “standard” treatment, including corticosteroids and, in a handful of cases, other experimental drugs, progressed to serious illness from the virus, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Essentially, our study findings have dismissed the notion of ivermectin being a ‘miracle drug’ against COVID-19,” study co-author Dr. Steven Chee Loon Lim told UPI in an email.\n<\/p>\n “People infected with COVID-19 should not resort to self-medication with ivermectin, which does not reduce their risk of deterioration to severe disease,” said Lim, an infectious diseases physician at the Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital in Perak, Malaysia.<\/p>\n In addition, study participants treated with ivermectin reported more side effects than those given other drugs, Lim said.<\/p>\n This “raises concerns about the widespread use of this drug,” he said.\n<\/p>\n Ivermectin has been touted by celebrities and others as a potential treatment for COVID-19 despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting its use.\n<\/p>\n As a result, patients sickened with the virus have requested the drug over the objections of healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n Although ivermectin does have potential uses — for the treatment of river blindness and West Nile virus — COVID-19 does not appear to be one of them, Lim said.\n<\/p>\n This study compared the safety and effectiveness of the veterinary drug to standard care in 480 Malaysian patients who had mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms before starting treatment, he and his colleagues said.<\/p>\n Two percent of the patients treated with ivermectin needed mechanical ventilation to maintain breathing, compared with 4% in the standard care group, the data showed.<\/p>\n Just over 2% of those given the anti-parasitic medication were admitted to the hospital intensive care unit compared with 3% of patients who received standard care, the researchers said.<\/p>\n In addition, 14 of the ivermectin patients developed severe diarrhea and four suffered potentially life-threatening kidney damage, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “Despite its early promise of efficacy in COVID-19 treatment, large and well-designed randomized clinical trials, including ours, have consistently shown that ivermectin offered little or no significant clinical benefits,” Lim said.<\/p>\n “I believe the findings in our study will likely ‘close the door’ on the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19,” he said.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1\/3 Ivermectin is no better than “standard” treatment is slowing COVID-19 progression, according to a new study. File photo by Jim Ruymen\/UPI | License Photo Feb. 18 (UPI) — Treatment with the dewormer drug ivermectin failed to prevent patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 from progressing to serious illness, a study published Friday by JAMA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":996234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[261,176,5233,2402,1227,28],"class_list":["post-996233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-covid19","tag-finds","tag-ivermectin","tag-prevent","tag-severe","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=996233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=996233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=996233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=996233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Ivermectin is no better than “standard” treatment is slowing COVID-19 progression, according to a new study. File photo by Jim Ruymen\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n