WHO warns against the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued guidance warning against using the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.

The European Medicines Agency, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had earlier discouraged the use of the drug for the treatment of COVID-19.

“This applies to patients with COVID-19 of any disease severity,” Janet Diaz, a top WHO official for clinical care response, told reporters of the WHO recommendation, saying it was “based on very low certainty of evidence” that ivermectin helps.

“We are fighting this overuse of unproven therapies – especially some of these repurposed drugs – in various parts of the world without evidence of efficacy,” Diaz said. “There can be more harm than any good.”

The WHO’s review was based on a survey of 16 trials of ivermectin involving 2,400 people, including those comparing it with hydroxychloroquine, an older malaria medicine that has been discredited as a COVID-19 treatment. There were very few placebo-controlled studies of ivermectin.

Bram Rochwerg, an associate professor at Canada’s McMaster University and a co-chair of the WHO panel that reviewed ivermectin, said more data was needed in order to make informed decisions.

He said the data available was sparse and likely based on chance, though he said: “high quality, trustworthy trials” were still merited.

Some countries have been utilising ivermectin to combat the coronavirus, despite the lack of evidence for it as a treatment.

MTO/Vanguard