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Over the past few weeks, there has been plenty of noise around the use of Ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19.

There are people touting its use on social media, and there are also videos doing the rounds which claim that using Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medicine currently registered for veterinary use only in South Africa, can have rapid results.

In one instance, two videos, widely shared on WhatsApp, are part of an advert where a woman is offering the use of the drug at R20 a dosage.

Those were shared by The Daily Voice, and cannot be embedded on our site, so click the image below to be redirected.

Here’s a summary of what they purport to show:

In one video, a man wearing a mask is in tears as he admits to administering Ivermectin to people and appeals to government to make it available to the public.

“I can’t stop crying, the people are dying, I’ve helped 70 people so far for the day. It is sad what the government is doing to us, kassam, and you people are quiet,” he says.

“You can’t be quiet, I need your support, you have to come out, kanala.”

When The Daily Voice reached out to the people in the video who claimed rapid recovery after the dose, one said they feared legal repercussions for being in possession of the drug, and the lady advertising the doses did not respond.

The fact that the videos are being shared as part of an advert is certainly important, and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) is cautioning against Ivermectin’s use, saying it is not approved by them for use in humans.

SABC News shared these details, compiled with the assistant of SAHPRA:

A number of the country’s top vaccinologists, scientists, and infectious diseases experts have also gone on the record to warn against “irresponsible social media hype around the use of Ivermectin”.

You can read that report here.

Meanwhile, a group of South African doctors, clinicians, pharmacists, public health specialists and scientists have lodged an application with SAHPRA seeking permission for all doctors to prescribe the drug to their patients, and Facebook groups have sprung up touting its use in the country.

According to a small new study, reports News24, “early administration of ivermectin can reduce viral loads and symptom duration in patients with mild Covid-19”:

The research published in EClinicalMedicine, a clinical journal by The Lancet, enrolled 24 patients in a randomised trial. Half of them took ivermectin and the other half a placebo within the first 72 hours after the first symptoms started.

The patients were observed for 28 days. There was no difference in positive test results after seven days on treatment. However, the findings revealed that the viral load in the ivermectin-treated group was lower.

The study authors did point out that they did not set out to find “definitive evidence” regarding Ivermectin’s use, adding that the small-scale study has “several key limitations that warrant careful interpretation of the results”.

Earlier in the week, SAHPRA told Health24 that it will revisit research on Ivermectin, and is still awaiting data from trials.

[sources:dailyvoice&sabc&news24]