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PETALING JAYA: A coalition of health groups urges the government to approve the use of the parasitic drug Ivermectin for Covid-19 patients.
The Malaysian Alliance for Effective Covid Control (MAECC) has claimed that use of the drug could bring the Covid-19 situation under six weeks.
He also pleaded with the government to exercise its emergency powers to speed up the use of ivermectin and “appropriate” supplements for immune boosting for all those in quarantine.
“We urge the government to position this drug and reuse it as a first-line therapy. Globally, ivermectin has been used for the past four decades and more than 3.7 billion doses have been prescribed.
“It is one of the safest drugs. The science for ivermectin is compelling, ”Dr. Farid Amir Ishak said on behalf of the MAECC at a press conference broadcast live on Zoom yesterday.
He said studies showed that preventing large numbers of Covid-19 deaths was possible, adding that early use of the drug could reduce the severity of the disease.
He said it could be unethical if Covid-19 patients were not allowed to be treated with the drug.
Dr S. Vijaendreh, also from MAECC, said clinical trials will take time and called for conditional use of the drug by all doctors who wish to prescribe it according to guidelines set by the health ministry.
“All data and results can be stored, shared and analyzed,” he said, adding that the MAECC wanted to present to the ministry any emerging data that supported the use of the drug.
He said from the accumulated data there was sufficient reason to use the drug as one of the arsenals in the treatment of Covid-19.
“It is important to stress that it is not the magic pill that solves everything on Covid-19 but it has a very important role, and we should use it as directed,” he said.
Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat head lice and river blindness in humans and heartworms in animals.
Regarding Covid-19 treatment, laboratory experiments conducted by researchers at Monash University in Australia revealed that ivermectin in vitro had an inhibitory action on SARS-CoV-2, reducing the burden of 5,000-fold viral RNA in 48 hours.
On June 5, the ministry and the Institute for Clinical Research began clinical trials to study the use and effectiveness of ivermectin for patients at high risk of Covid-19 in 12 hospitals.
Health Director General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said ivermectin is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pest control drug widely used to treat several neglected tropical diseases, including onchocerciasis. , strongyloidiasis and helminthiasis.
However, he said the evidence was inconclusive to recommend the routine use of ivermectin for Covid-19 patients.
Dr Noor Hisham said the FDA had not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing Covid-19 in humans, while the World Health Organization only recommended it in the part of a clinical trial.
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