During the pandemic, I heard from more than one person that they were considering using Ivermectin to improve outcomes of having COVID-19 infection.
In fact, upon review of the literature, it does seem that in some smaller initial studies, Ivermectin did show some promise as a novel treatment for COVID-19 (Ahmed et al, 2021). Those claims were later refuted, but like many health topics, the narrative remained. Ivermectin is a viable and successful medication regimen for some parasitic illnesses and Crump & Omure (2011) even cited Ivermectin as a wonder drug. However, the use of Ivermectin as a treatment to mitigate serious consequences of COVID-19 infection did not show benefit once sufficiently studied (Ronman et al, 2022).
The misinformation about Ivermectin, especially within anti-vaccine circles, coupled with the fact that Ivermectin is commercially available without a prescription, opened the door for a high number of scenarios where Ivermectin was misused and overused, causing significant health impacts and even death amongst users (Campillo & Faillie, 2022).
COVID-19 and vaccination became an especially polarizing time in Canada and the world – feelings and opinions about the virus, response from government and health care and the vaccine became a topic that many felt vehement about on both sides of the discussion. I truly believe the this pandemic was the tipping point into misinformation and mistrust aligning to cause a very large cohort of Canadians to question health care and government as perhaps not having their best interests at heart.
References
Ahmed, S., Karim, M. M., Ross, A. G., Hossain, M. S., Clemens, J. D., Sumiya, M. K., Phru, C. S., Rahman, M., Zaman, K., Somani, J., Yasmin, R., Hasnat, M. A., Kabir, A., Aziz, A. B., & Khan, W. A. (2021). A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 103, 214–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.11.191
Campillo, J. T., & Faillie, J. L. (2022). Adverse drug reactions associated with ivermectin use for COVID-19 reported in the World Health Organization’s pharmacovigilance database. Therapie, 77(6), 747–749. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.therap.2022.03.002
Crump, A., & Ōmura, S. (2011). Ivermectin, ‘wonder drug’ from Japan: the human use perspective. Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and biological sciences, 87(2), 13–28. https://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.87.13
Roman, Y. M., Burela, P. A., Pasupuleti, V., Piscoya, A., Vidal, J. E., & Hernandez, A. V. (2022). Ivermectin for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 74(6), 1022–1029. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciab591