Abstract
The broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent ivermectin has been very recently found to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and proposed as a candidate for drug repurposing in COVID-19. In the present report the in vitro antiviral activity end-points are analyzed from the pharmacokinetic perspective. The available pharmacokinetic data from clinically relevant and excessive dosing studies indicate that the SARS-CoV-2 inhibitory concentrations are not likely to be attainable in humans.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemics has fuelled much research efforts towards repurposing of existing drugs as possible antiviral agents, whereby the therapeutic strategies have been largely based on preexisting data for the preceding coronaviral outbreaks SARS and MERS1-3
This paper describes the in vitro antiviral activity of the antiparasitic agent ivermectin in a model of Vero/hSLAM cells infected with a SARS-CoV-2 isolate (Australia/VIC01/2020)[11]
Ivermectin is a semisynthetic analogue of the natural product avermectin B1a, a lipophilic macrolide isolated from Streptomyces avermitilis developed as a crop management insecticide
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemics has fuelled much research efforts towards repurposing of existing drugs as possible antiviral agents, whereby the therapeutic strategies have been largely based on preexisting data for the preceding coronaviral outbreaks SARS and MERS1-3. An exceptionally alarming phenomenon is the public communication of drugs with preliminary in vitro activities against SARS-CoV-2 as potential therapeutics for COVID-19 eventually causing malignant reverberation in social media. Such example is the otherwise very interesting study of Caly et al, recently published in Antiviral Research[11]
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