Dr. Jean-Jacques Rajter of Florida’s Broward Health Medical Center told Newsmax TV on Friday that recent scientific trials suggest that the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin could be used to treat the coronavirus.
Researchers from Monash University in Australia conducted a study earlier this year that showed the drug, ivermectin, stopped SARS-CO-2 virus growing in cell cultures within 48 hours. Also, it was shown to be effective against HIV, influenza, dengue, and the Zika virus in prevous lab tests.
The Monash researchers cautioned that the tests conducted in their study were in vitro, and the trials needed to be carried out in people.
“We know that this is something that has been extremely successful. It’s really about trying to convince our peers that this is as successful as what we have experienced,” Rajter told “John Bachman Now,” adding that “our local peers have actually seen the benefit of that, other colleagues of mine are using it widely in their practice.”
He said, “Looking at this, it’s kind of very interesting to me, you look at early intervention for other diseases, we’re very aware that the earlier we intervene the better the outcomes are. So we know that if we were to use this [on] our patients early on, we could decrease the likelihood of having people hospitalized and decrease the burden on the hospital systems, like we see in the Midwest.”
Rajter also said that the treatment “could decrease the economic impact on the economy because people could go back to their normal lives.”
Ivermectin was a drug developed in the 1970s for the treatment of the parasitic diseases river blindness – or onchocerciasis – and lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis.
Rajter won one of seven researchers from the Broward Health Medical Center who, after learning of ivermectin’s success in prohibiting replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a laboratory, reviewed 280 cases of patients with COVID-19 who were -- and were not treated -- with ivermectin. Their results were published in October in the medical journal Chestnet.
Patients who received ivermectin had a mortality rate of 15% compared to 25% who did not receive the drug. The results were even more significant for COVID-19 patients with "severe pulmonary involvement."
The mortality rate was only 38% for those patients who received ivermectin compared with 80.7% for the patients that did not receive it.
Most patients in both groups also received hydroxychloroquine and/or azithromycin.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is concerned about the health of consumers who may self-medicate by taking ivermectin products intended for animals. People should never take animal drugs, as the FDA has only evaluated the safety and efficascy in the particular species for which they are labeled.
People shouldn't take any form of ivermectin unless precribed by a licensed health care provider and obtained via a legitimate source.
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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