Argentina Ministry of Health Clinical Trial: Ivermectin Shows Benefit Treating Outpatients with Mild COVID-19
This study (NCT04784481)
was organized by the Ministry of Health in Argentina to test the efficacy of ivermectin as an alternative treatment based on the reuse of drugs as a strategy to prevent progression of the disease.
This particular study
centered on the use of ivermectin in mild-stage outpatients to heal and/or reverse the progression of COVID-19 disease from progressing to moderate or severe stages.
With a target of n=234, the subjects
were divided into experimental groups (ivermectin) and control groups.
The experimental group received ivermectin orally, 4 drops of 6mg (24mg) 7 days for 4 weeks.
All participants were evaluated by physical evaluation and had to be positive for COVID via RT-PCR at the beginning, and end of the protocol.
Conclusion
The study team concluded that
the treatment with ivermectin in the population of outpatients with mild stage COVID-19 disease managed to significantly reduce the number of symptoms on days 5 and days 9.
However, by 10 day onward, subsequent medical examinations didn’t reveal statistical differences.
Ivermectin had a significant effect (p=0.003) in achieving medical release.
The treatment with ivermectin
could significantly prevent the evolution to serious stages since the experimental group did not present any patient with referral to critical hospitalization.
In other groups, the patients
did not advance to highest scores in the ordinal scale, which represents more compromised stages of the disease.
Apparently, the Argentinian study group reports that
ivermectin brought other benefits in relation to the improvement in the patient’s condition.
There were no adverse events reported.
Those patients on ivermectin
had a greater than 89.1% probability of being released at the end of the intervention than did the control group (on placebo).
This probability existed even when factoring the presence of comorbidities.
No deaths were recorded in either group of these mild COVID-19 patients.
The median age of study participants (40) as well as comorbidities were equally present in both groups.