A drug originally developed in the 1970s as a veterinary medicine to combat parasites in livestock was associated with lower death rates among people suffering from COVID-19, a study conducted in Florida and published in the medical journal Chest revealed.
Patients who received ivermectin, which was called a "wonder drug" in a study a decade ago for the treatment of the parasitic diseases, river blindness – or onchocerciasis – and lymphatic filariasis, 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.
"In this multihospital retrospective cohort study, we observed a significant association with ivermectin on improved survival for patients admitted with COVID-19," the authors said. "This association was also seen in the subset of patients with severe pulmonary disease."
Ivermectin was shown to inhibit replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 in laboratory tests, which led to "off-label" use, the study's authors said in their report. That led to a warning by the Food & Drug Administration on April 10 against its use.
The Florida researchers reviewed the treatment and results of 280 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at four Broward Health hospitals between March 15 and May 11.
One hundred seventh-three patients were treated with ivermectin and 107 were not.
"After multivariate adjustment for confounders and mortality risks, the mortality difference remained significant," the authors said, 13.3% for the ivermectin-treated patients versus 24.5% without.
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