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Ivermectin: Is it effective against COVID-19?
Crucial conclusions
There is no evidence that ivermectin is effective in treating COVID-19 or protecting against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Even with the little improvement, there is still a very tiny body of evidence.
Ivermectin is currently being evaluated in thirty-one trials; we will update this assessment as soon as their results are released.
What is ivermectin, exactly?
Ivermectin is a drug used to treat parasites, such as intestinal parasites in animals and human scabies. It is low priced and widely used in regions of the world where parasite infestations are common. There aren’t many adverse consequences for use Doxycycline 100mg
Medical organizations have not approved ivermectin for COVID-19.
What was it we wanted to discover?
We would like to give an update on our knowledge of whether ivermectin helps to prevent the infection or reduces the risk of illness, death, and length of infection in individuals with COVID-19. Included were trials that compared the drug to standard care, placebo (dummy treatment), other COVID-19 treatments that have been shown to be moderately effective (such dexamethasone). Our analysis did not include trials that compared ivermectin to other medications that are ineffective against COVID-19 or hydroxychloroquine.
We evaluated the efficacy of ivermectin on the following outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection: viral clearance, significant and non-serious side effects, quality of life, death, and improvement or worsening of the virus.
We looked into how SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 sickness affected prevention.
How did we go about it?
We searched for randomized controlled trials that examined the application of ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19. Patients must have COVID-19 that has been confirmed by a test in order to get inpatient or outpatient care.
We also investigated the studies’ dependability, and we only included them in this update if they satisfied certain ethical and scientific criteria.
Using conventional criteria such trial sizes and procedures, we compared and summarized the trial outcomes to determine our degree of confidence in the evidence.
What did we find out?
Seven of the 14 trials that were a part of the previous review were taken out since they didn’t adhere to the expected ethical and scientific criteria. We incorporated eleven trials including 3409 participants and four more that examined the comparison between ivermectin with either standard treatment and either placebo or the same standard care.
For treatment, there were five trials for hospitalized patients with intermediate COVID-19 and six studies for outpatients with mild COVID-19. In the tests, different ivermectin dosages and treatment lengths were used.
The effectiveness of ivermectin in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections has not been investigated.
Furthermore, we found 28 experiments that are either unpublished or require author validation before they can be published.
Treating hospital patients with COVID-19
We are unsure of the following effects of ivermectin 28 days after treatment in contrast to placebo or normal care: either worsens or improves patients’ condition as indicated by the requirement for ventilation or death (2 trials, 118 individuals); – causes more or fewer deaths (3 trials, 230 people); – increases or decreases significant undesired events (2 trials, 197 people).
After 28 days of treatment, ivermectin may have minimal to no impact on: – enhancing hospital discharge scores for patients (1 study, 73 participants); – non-serious adverse events (3 trials, 228 participants).
When compared to placebo or normal care, ivermectin may have little to no effect on the lowering of negative COVID-19 test findings seven days post-treatment (3 trials, 231 participants).
Managing outpatients with COVID-19
Contrasting the effects of Ivermectin with placebo or usual treatment Most likely has little to no effect on death 28 days after therapy (6 trials, 2860 participants).
Ivermectin has little to no effect on quality of life when compared to a placebo or usual care. 28 days following therapy (1 study, 1358 subjects).
Ivermectin may have little to no effect on the following 28 days after treatment: – the number of patients with negative COVID-19 tests seven days after treatment; – the progression of patients’ conditions as indicated by hospital admission or death (2 trials, 590 participants); – serious unwanted events (5 trials, 1502 participants); – non-serious unwanted events (5 trials, 1502 participants); – the improvement of patients’ COVID-19 symptoms in the 14 days following treatment (2 trials, 478 participants).
What are the limitations of the evidence?
We have been able to study a greater number of participants in high-quality studies since the last review iteration, which has bolstered our confidence in the evidence, especially for outpatients. Although we are relatively confident in our results regarding the risk of mortality and quality of life, our confidence in the evidence is still low for many other outpatient and inpatient outcomes because only a limited number of events were measured. Methodology differences between trials meant that some of the information we were interested in, such as relevant results, was not disclosed.
