NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The warnings are clear and coming from trusted medical agencies: If you get COVID-19, don't take a drug traditionally used to treat parasitic infections.
Researchers are finding legal and safe way to get access to Ivermectin as a possible virus treatment.
“We have done laboratory studies that have shown that it has some anti-viral effect is against SARS COviD-2 and other viruses, but we don't know if that lab effect will translate into humans, 847 and so we want to do the act of study to scientifically test whether Ivermectin does benefit patients with COVID,” Researcher Dr. Rowena Dolor said.
Dr. Dolor is one of the researchers conducting a government-funded trial looking at several re-purposed drugs to treat COVID.
They’re using Ivermectin, a steroid inhaler commonly used for Asthma and COPD and an anti-depressant.
Ivermectin has gained the most attention recently because some were getting doses meant for large animals from farm-supply companies. The FDA reported people showing up in hospitals with serious side effects after taking the animal version.
Researchers said in the human trial, safety is the top priority.
“In this trial, we're actually dosing the medication, based on the patient's weight and we're low dosing it based on the desired drug concentration that we need to treat the infection,” Dr. Dolor said.
The Activ-6 trial on Ivermectin is looking for adult COVID positive people who are experiencing symptoms.
Several hundred patients have already enrolled at about 40 clinical sites, but they want to expand to more than 250 sites and thousands more patients.
They said it's critical to continue getting diverse participants, particularly from Black and Hispanic communities.
“We want to know that the trial results that from these studies will be applicable to patients of color or communities of color so the good news, though, is that we've had at least 25% of site participants to date have been Black or Hispanic Americans,” Dr. Dolor explained.
Information on various COVID treatment trials can be found, here.
