The Use of Oral Human Grade Ivermectin with Supplements Known as Immunomodulators for Treating Patients with COVID-19 Infections at Home

Abstract

Background: Several meta-analyses have shown low to moderate certainty for Ivermectin (IVM) to reduce all-cause mortality from COVID -19 infection by 68% and to prevent infection by about 86%. Objectives: The aim of our study is to determine the effects of oral IVM for treating mild to moderate COVID infections and the effects of demography, symptomatology, co-morbidities, IVM dose and combination or single immunomodulating supplements on clinical recovery Method: A cross-sectional design covering the period of April 2021 to June 2021 was used. The participants were clinicians in Metro Manila who prescribed IVM for home care treatment of their COVID-19 patients. Result: Out of 338 evaluable patients, 95.6% (323/338) showed full recovery at the end of the study, 0.59% (2/338) was still recovering, 2.36% (8/338) are long haulers and 1.47% (5/338) succumbed to the infection. Mild cases received IVM at 0.2 to 0.8 mg/kg body weight (kgbw) and 1.0 to 1.8 mg /kgbw for moderate cases for 5-7 days. The p-values of 0.022 for gender and 0.000 for co-morbidity showed that these factors can significantly affect the recovery of COVID-19 patients. Shortness of breath (p-value of 0.000), muscle pain (p-value =.002) and headache (p-value=0.011) have significant effects on recovery. Among the co-morbidities, hypertension (p-value=0.000), diabetes (p-value=.006), cardiovascular diseases (p-value=0.001) and obesity (p-value=0.014) have statistical significant effects on clinical outcomes. Using Kruskal Wallis H statistics, the intake of combination immunomodulators has significant effect on the recovery of COVID-19 patients (p-value of 0.027). Using Mann-Whitney statistics, Zinc alone showed statistically significant effect (p-value of 0.002) for recovering from COVID. Conclusion: IVM is effective for COVID infections provided it is given early and the dose is adjusted for severity and co-morbidities. The graduated dose regimen of IVM and the predilection of the virus to mutate will become a challenge for designing future randomized clinical trials.