Health Officials Say Ivermectin Is Unsafe And Unapproved For Treatment Or Prevention Of Covid In People
CHARLOTTE, NC – Top health experts issuing a new warning about the use of an unsafe and unapproved method to attempt to treat Covid-19.
Ivermectin is a common drug used to treat large animals, like horses or cows that are sick with parasites.
“It is not an antiviral, it is not used in that sense at all in vet med. It is typically used as a deworming agent,” said Lauren Hendren.
She is the lead veterinarian at Commonwealth Animal Hospital. She says Ivermectin is regularly used in very small doses to treat heartworm in dogs and cats. And in larger doses for horses and cattle.
“A lot of the products for animals are meant for large animals so they’re very highly concentrated and could be especially dangerous for people,” said Hendren.
Still, some are attempting to use the animal drug to ward off Covid-19.
“Ivermectin is not a recommended treatment for Covid-19. it is not a recommended drug to prevent Covid-19,” said Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General.
Dr. Murthy says the Mississippi poison control is seeing an increase in cases of people ingesting ivermectin.
“If you get Covid-19 we actually have treatments that work from steroids to monoclonal antibodies and other treatments, but Ivermectin is not one of them” said Dr. Murthy.
Locally, animal feed store shelves are bare.
“When you go into the feed stores it’s in casings and you have to ask for it. It’s a weird, weird time,” said Logan Harris.
Harris is a horse professional out of Monroe. She says Ivermectin is commonly used on animals with worms. Finding is now a challenge.
“Now, they’re limiting it to close to 8 tubes per person whereas before we could get 20, 30 tubes at a time. It’s something you’ve never seen before,” said Harris.
With a new rush of people picking up the unapproved drug, Hendren worries people’s pets could be left in a tight spot.
“If you start to take that away and we lose that supply, then there are a lot of animals that are going to be at a very significant risk of getting heartworms,” said Hendren.
In April an Australian university biomedicine center did laboratory tests with Ivermectin. They found that it could prevent covid from developing in cells.. But the drug has not gone through any clinical trials and there have been no dosing studies.
The World Health Organization and the US Food and Drug Administration have not approved ivermectin for human use.
The Australian University even put out a statement last week saying, “Ivermectin is not to be used for the treatment of COVID-19 outside clinical trials with appropriate ethical approval.
