“1. Introduction
One avenue to slow viral transmission [of COVID-19] would be to inhibit replication of the virus, thus reducing the viral load in infected individuals. Interestingly, the relatively old antiparasitic drug ivermectin has recently been reported to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in vitro... Throughout the past few months, interest in ivermectin as a treatment for SARS-CoV-2-infected patients has grown and the drug has been shown to reduce mortality among hospitalised patients. In contrast to most other recently explored treatments, ivermectin has been reported as especially promising in early and mild cases of COVID-19. This strong precedent, paired with ivermectin's well understood safety profile, naturally raises the question whether it could also be used prophylactically against SARS-CoV-2.
2. Methods
To answer this intriguing question, we collected data from countries that routinely deploy prophylactic chemotherapy (PCT) using various drugs including ivermectin. Based on the varying MDA designs, we grouped these countries into two different categories—those that include ivermectin in their PCT and those that do not. We then proceeded to compare COVID-19 proliferation between these two groups and further contrasted them against a third group of countries that do not use PCT at all...
3. Results and Discussion
... [T]he difference between nations that deploy PCT using ivermectin and those that do not use any PCT turned out to be highly significant (adjusted significance P < 0.01). These initial results were obtained on 15 April 2020 and because at that time SARS-CoV-2 was still being detected in new countries on an almost daily basis, we chose to monitor the situation and observe whether this correlation would over time become less significant. We updated our calculations and added additional newly affected countries several times throughout the month of May 2020 and noticed that the observed association between ivermectin MDA and lower COVID-19 incidence actually grew strictly stronger over time. By 5 June 2020, the adjusted significance had improved to P < 0.001, actually reported by IBM SPSS Statistics as 0.000. It has remained at that level since.”
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