By June, two other high-profile COVID-19 studies were retracted that contained data from the firm.ĭoctors are prescribing the anti-parasite drug ivermectin to people in Latin America to protect them against the coronavirus, despite a lack of evidence. The preprint had included an analysis of electronic health records by the company Surgisphere, which provided unreliable COVID-19 data sets that raised red flags for scientists in late May. That report was later removed from the site by some of its authors because, they told Nature, the study was not ready for peer review. Shortly afterwards, a preprint appeared online that suggested the drug could reduce coronavirus-related deaths in people. Researchers in Australia had noted that high doses of ivermectin could stop the virus from replicating in cells 1. Ivermectin grabbed attention in April, when scientists were throwing every already-approved drug they could at the coronavirus. “This has been an odyssey.” The price of popularity “Of about 10 people who come, I’d say 8 have taken ivermectin and cannot participate in the study,” says Patricia García, a global-health researcher at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima and a former health minister for Peru who is running one of the 40 clinical trials worldwide that are currently testing the drug. Some early studies in cells and humans hinted that the drug has antiviral properties, but since then, clinical trials in Latin America have struggled to recruit participants because so many are already taking it. And in July, a university in Peru announced that it would produce 30,000 doses to bolster the country’s supply.īut the evidence that ivermectin protects people from COVID-19 is scant. That same month, the Peruvian police seized around 20,000 bottles of animal-grade ivermectin that was sold on the black market as a treatment for human coronavirus infections. The drug has been so in demand that in May, health-care workers passed out some 350,000 doses to residents in northern Bolivia. Ivermectin, an inexpensive, over-the-counter medicine, has been used for decades to treat livestock and people infested with parasitic worms - and in the past few months, its popularity as a preventative against COVID-19 has surged in Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala and other Latin American countries.Īnti-parasite drugs sweep Nobel prize in medicine 2015 Still, people in the region have rushed to take it, making it hard for researchers to properly test it.
So researchers are cautioning against using it outside clinical trials. There isn’t enough evidence that the drug, ivermectin, is safe or effective as a coronavirus therapy, however. Credit: EFE News Agency/AlamyĪs much of the world waits for an effective vaccine to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, some in Latin America are turning to an unproven treatment. Peru (a hospital in Iquitos shown here) has been one of the nations hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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