TrialSite has followed the research of Dr. Lucy Kerr and other Brazilian and Latin American-based investigations into the use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kerr and four other medical researchers, two affiliated with Brazilian academic medical centers, and one from a Cuban biotech institute, were involved in the study of the efficacy of the generic, regulatory approved antiparasitic drug in three different municipalities in Brazil covered by TrialSite back in September 2020. Most recently, Dr. Kerr and colleagues posted the results of a citywide prevention program using ivermectin, implemented in Itajai in the south of Brazil. The prospective, observational study analyzed citywide COVID-19 data between July 2020 to December 2020. The study logistics of instructional review board approval and registry data analysis occurred retrospectively due to the urgent pandemic conditions at the time. The population-wide Propensity Score Matching-based study found that regular use of ivermectin as a prophylactic agent was associated with a significant reduction in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality. Most recently, the study results were subject to the crowdsourced peer-reviewed process at Cureus Journal of Medical Science (Cureus)—one of the prominent journals involving both prepublication and post-publication scientific review.
While the results of this study were already provided by TrialSite via the preprint manuscript, we also provide a link to the study manuscript published in Cureus as well.
TrialSite recommends a thorough read of the entire study results. While this is a retrospective and observational type of study, other similar ones in Brazil and Mexico showed results. TrialSite reported on other Brazilian municipality studies focused on COVID-19 and ivermectin, while a major population and care-based study in Mexico City received shockingly little coverage. The latter can be reviewed here.
In the Itajai-based study involving 220,000 subjects, the authors observed that the study drug lowered the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate by 44% while reducing hospitalization by 40% and mortality (death) by 45% before even applying the PSM, which leads to even superior results. TrialSite has suggested limitations in this class of study and undoubtedly academicians in North American and European ivory towers will point to such constraints rather than also consider the intriguing possibilities the study data imply.
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While TrialSite has chronicled many dozens of ivermectin-based studies since the spring of 2020, a popular website aggregates all ivermectin-based studies for easy access and review. To date, researchers have completed 75 ivermectin-based studies targeting COVID-19. While the mainstream press and regulators in North America tend to ignore the great majority of positive findings, rather looking at the few studies that haven’t indicated a positive association, most studies around the world demonstrate statistically significant improvements associated with a reduction in COVID-19 mortality, severe disease, recovery, and viral clearance.
TrialSite reports that there are no cures for COVID-19 but that the medical establishment has most certainly exhibited bias away from economical, repurposed therapies in favor of investment in vaccines and novel, branded (and expensive) therapies.