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Towards the start of this year, when the second COVID-19 wave swept across the country, everybody was talking about Ivermectin.
Videos did the rounds on WhatsApp, hailing it as some kind of miracle cure, whilst medical professionals urged caution.
When Carte Blanche weighed in on the matter, there was a swift and sizeable backlash on social media, with all the usual stuff about the ‘mainstream media’ and shilling for ‘Big Pharma’.
No matter what scientific, peer-reviewed evidence you present, you’ll never change some minds, but it’s still worth covering the results from the largest Ivermectin trial yet.
As GroundUp reports, whilst some previous trials did suggest that it may be of some benefit with regards to treating COVID-19, the most recent “found no statistically significant benefit from ivermectin but possible harm from the drug”.
The trial was carried out on 501 volunteers, with 250 randomly assigned to take Ivermectin, and the other 251 given placebos:
Yet even this trial is too small to definitively settle questions about ivermectin’s safety and efficacy. Nevertheless, even if some future trial does find benefit, there is now little doubt that this is not a wonder drug; whatever benefits it may have are at most modest.
This latest trial was conducted in Argentina by Julio Vallejos and colleagues. The results were published in BMC Infectious Diseases on 2 July. It’s main outcome was to see if ivermectin reduced hospitalisation in people with Covid-19…
This study confirms the results of a Columbian one published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which also found no statisticially significant benefit from ivermectin versus placebo. That study had 476 participants.
The South African health department first published an Ivermectin review back in January, and have recently updated that review as more information has become available.
Here’s the most recent conclusion:
“There is currently insufficient evidence to recommend ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19. Much of the randomised clinical trial evidence consists of trials of low methodological quality, for the most part with small sample sizes and disparate interventions and controls, limiting the confidence in any conclusions with respect to ivermectin. What evidence does exist does not suggest any clinical or virological benefits.”
That review is compiled by many of the country’s leading experts on assessing medicine.
In other words, it carries more weight than that link to a discredited study your aunt shared on the family WhatsApp group.
As stated above, larger studies are still needed to “definitively settle questions” and it’s hoped that Oxford University’s PRINCIPLE trial can provide just that.
The GroundUp report concludes:
The ivermectin story mirrors the hydroxychloroquine one. Both drugs, while still untested, have become the obsession of conspiracy theorists who are convinced that tens of thousands of experts on medicine together with public health officials are duping the public and denying everyone life-saving treatments…
Advocating its use before a well-run clinical trial shows that it is safe and effective is highly irresponsible.
GroundUp editor Nathan Geffen also appeared on CapeTalk’s Afternoon Drive with John Maytham this week, to discuss the study in greater detail.
You can listen to that interview below:
