“Background: Scientists have so far been unable to determine the reason for the low number of COVID-19 cases in Africa.
Objective: To evaluate the impact of ivermectin interventions for onchocerciasis on the morbidity, mortality, recovery, and fatality rates caused by COVID-19.
Conclusions: The morbidity and mortality in the onchocerciasis endemic countries are lesser than those in the non-endemic ones. The community-directed onchocerciasis treatment with ivermectin is the most reasonable explanation for the decrease in morbidity and fatality rate in Africa. In areas where ivermectin is distributed to and used by the entire population, it leads to a significant reduction in mortality.”
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254377; this version posted March 26, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.