Role of Ivermectin in Management of COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic corona virus disease 19 (COVID-19), caused by (SARS-CoV-2) a single stranded-RNA virus, has been spread rapidly worldwide with high rate of morbidity and mortality. Few months after the spread of the pandemic, few medications have proven to be efficient in human clinical trials. Several antiviral drugs have been used outside the scope of their initial medical use, such as lopinavir, hydroxychloroquine or azithromycin. Recent researches were done to show the efficacy of ivermectin in reducing SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA within 2 days. The use of ivermectin in in vitro studies has proven its efficacy against Corona virus. Based on the potency of ivermectin in in vitro studies, various clinical trials including patients infected with COVID-19 have been started; most of them have not been completed yet. Since the way how the virus infects the cells in vitro and in vivo is different, a decisive comment about how the ivermectin could exactly be beneficial to the patients has not been proven yet. Nevertheless, if ivermectin is compared to the other therapeutic treatments available for COVID-19 management, ivermectin has proved to have leverage over them. New randomized controlled clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of ivermectin the management of COVID-19 are strongly and urgently needed.