Community-Driven Ivermectin Program in Area of Quezon City Appears to Cut COVID-19 Cases in Half
Located next to Manila, Quezon City
has 3 million people and recently a political representative from the Barangay Matandang Balara declared that
the off-label use of ivermectin for the COVID-19 indication has reduced the infection cases in half in less than a month.
Mike Defensor, along with Rep. Rolande Marcoleta,
organized a community-driven,
district-wide ivermectin program to residents in this district, reported the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team, starting on April 30.At that time, there were 138 cases.
By May 22,
the infections dropped by 57.2% to 59 total cases.By May 24,
the cases declined further to just 39 infections.The local political representative
argues for mass ivermectin distribution based on these and other observations.
Of course,
this isn’t a controlled observational studyso a number of factors could influence the trend but it’s one that TrialSite’s observing in other places,
such as Uttar Pradesh, India, where an assertive, population-wide program that includes ivermectin-based home medicine kits appears to be working in a big way.
By early March 2021,
the Philippines experienced the second and far bigger wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.By April 2, 15,928 cases were reported in one day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The cases are declining now as 6,454 cases were reported on May 27, according to the Manila Standard.
Ivermectin has been touted by some politicians and physician groups, especially for the poor,
but also across socioeconomic lines in this southeast Asian nation of about 111 million people.
On May 7, TrialSite reported the ivermectin topic continued to drive controversy as a growing proponent group fought that sufficient data was now available to broadly distribute the drug such as in India
while a larger and more influentially represented group took the stand of the World Health Organization (WHO), arguing more clinical trials data is needed.