Indonesian Researchers Conduct Meta-Analysis of Ivermectin ：Find Compelling Efficacy Targeting COVID-19
Registered in the UK’s study registry PROSPERO, with their results
published in the peer review medical journal Reviews in Medical Virology, a team from Indonesia’s Pelita Harapan University, Tangerang conducted a meta-analysis
with the important question of whether ivermectin administration is effective in improving the outcomes in patients with COVID-19?
Complying with what’s known as the “PICO” framework,
meaning that the study adhered to the following
P: Population—Covid-19 patients;
I: Intervention—ivermectin medications;C: Comparison or Control—a group of patients who did not receive ivermectin, only receive standard of care therapy or any other medications as control/placebo;
O: Outcome—severe Covid-19, mortality,
negative RT-PCR test results rate,
time to negative RT-PCR test results, symptoms alleviations rate,
time to symptoms alleviations,
time to hospital discharge,randomized clinical trial articles were included, with the condition that the full-text paper was published.
Undertaking an extensive search in PubMed,
Europe PMC,
ClinicalTrials.gov,the team assessed the quality of underlying studies using Jadad scale assessment, a tool for clinical trial studies.
Employing Review Manager 5.4 software for their statistical analysis,
the researchers reviewed 19 studies with 2,768 COVID-19 patients in the study.
They found that ivermectin was associated with a reduction in the severity of COVID-19,
reduction of mortality,
higher negative RT-PCR test result rate, shorter time to negative RT-PCR test results,
higher rate of reducing COVID symptoms,
shorter hospitalization duration as measured by time to discharge.Yet another comprehensive meta-analysis
suggests ivermectin could offer beneficial effects when treating COVID-19.
Of course, the scholars recommend more clinical trials, as have all other researchers delving into the matter.
The Indonesia-based team
sought to provide some more clarity in the discussion about the efficacy of ivermectin,
clarifying whether they could find the evidence for ivermectin and its contribution to positive outcomes.