Ivermectin for COVID-19 Research Paper Example

📌Category: Coronavirus, Health, Medicine
📌Words: 671
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 09 April 2022

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a viral disease that has become prevalent in recent times and that has resulted in the formulation of many possible treatments that have varying levels of pharmacological effectiveness. A widely criticized potential treatment involves the use of the drug Ivermectin. Ivermectin is approved in Australia to treat illnesses such as scabies and roundworm infections (Taylor 2021), however, in recent times Ivermectin has been hailed as a miracle drug to treat covid-19 symptoms, popularized by an American television host ‘Joe Rogan’ (Taylor 2021). The use of ivermectin against Covid-19 widely increased, as a result of his supporters believing his statements and therefore recruiting others to follow suit, ivermectin is not proven to have any pharmacological usefulness against covid-19 or symptoms (Taylor 2021). In Australia, Ivermectin has not been approved by The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for use as an anti-viral medication for Covid-19 and has not passed through any clinical testing or safety measurements (Taylor 2021). TGA reported that there has been a shortage of ‘Stromectol 3mg’ ivermectin tablets with people reportedly importing this drug at intensive levels to treat COVID-19 (Taylor 2021), doctors have been found to prescribe ivermectin tablets to covid-19 patients when they inquire about this treatment.

The author of this article is a young male currently living in Melbourne and he does not believe that ivermectin could be used as a potential treatment for covid-19 and uses this article to comment on how societal impacts allowed the vast popularity of ivermectin as a treatment for covid-19 whilst not examining the deeper pharmacology of how it could work. The author does not appear to have any level of education in pharmacology which is reflected in this article and intended for a general audience and not specifically those interested in the pharmacological implications. This article was also published in 2021, during September in which there was a large outbreak of covid-19 in Melbourne resulting in lockdowns and making it a very popular topic and explaining potentially why the article focused more on the social aspects of this potential treatment.

Overall, this article fails to highlight and demonstrate how the pharmacology of Ivermectin could be used to treat and help ease the symptoms of COVID-19, specifically the mechanism of the drug's action in the body. The article does demonstrate that the most common form of ivermectin consumption is in tablet form of ‘Stromectol 3mg’ (Taylor 2021), this indicates it would be administered orally which can be done by non-skilled individuals and the drug will travel through the gastrointestinal system (GIT). Due to the administration, invectertin does not have full bioavailability, however, there is no indication for the safe dose of ivermectin and or any previously noted adverse drug reactions. How often ivermectin needs to be taken is based upon the half-life which is dependent on two variables of the drug the clearance and volume of distribution, all of these pieces of information are lacking from the article. 

This article mentions that Ivermectin is not approved for use as an anti-viral drug however it is approved to treat other parasitic conditions such as ringworm and river blindness (cite) which provides some information on its drug scheduling by the TGA, 

it does not indicate the specific drug schedule this places it in as that would be dependent on what it is treating such as scabies and roundworm it is likely a schedule 4 drug but for viral diseases such as covid-19 due to the legislation not approving it for treatment as of yet, it is likely a schedule 10. The therapeutic index (TI) of ivermectin is not mentioned, likely due to the lack of trials and research involving covid-19 and ivermectin. The TI is valuable information for safe dosing and potential precautions around medication.  TI is key to understanding the overall safety of a drug as with a high TI, the drug is fairly safe for use and does not need to be regulated but with a low TI, it would need to be more carefully monitored.

This article also fails to indicate if certain risk groups should not consume ivermectin including potential groups like children, pregnant women, and people with pre-existing conditions. Ivermectin might be potentially dangerous to take with other drugs such as on a molecular level, it could occupy the same carrier proteins or bind to the same receptor to either amplify or inhibit the impact of another drug.

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