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Curated from Indiatimes.com
Indian medical institutions have started giving COVID-19 patients Ivermectin off-label. Medical institutions across the nation are also giving the drug as a prophylaxis against the novel coronavirus.
This is being seen in several states of the nation including Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Dr Surya Kant Tripathi, in a conversation with Financial Express has revealed that the drug has been in use for over nine months now without major side effects being reported.
Dr Surya Kant Tripathi
Currently, it is being provided to patients under home isolation and patients experiencing mild cases of the disease. Kant claims that this drug has anti-viral, anti-parasitic, anti-cancer and even anti-HIV properties.
He was one of the many experts from India who had submitted a white paper on Ivermectin last year to WHO, emphasising that the drug was seen to reduce the replication rate of the novel coronavirus by a thousand times. Only after this paper, did the UP government start to recommend the drug to its citizens.
Addressing the lack of available clinical data on Ivermectin, Kant states that around 8 trials out of the total 66 trials are currently underway in India, with none showing any major side effects.
Another study published in PLoS One, conducted by AIIMS Bhubaneswar has shown that Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis was associated with a 73 percent reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month.
