73 percent Decline in COVID-19 incidences with Prophylactic use of Ivermectin: AIIMS Bhubaneshwar Research

Ivermectin is one of the many drugs under-study for COVID 19. Now recent research undertaken by the doctors at  All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar (AIIMS Bhubaneswar) has reported a 73% decline in the incidences of COVID-19 cases in healthcare workers who participated in the study

With the raging case of COVID 19 in healthcare workers in AIIMS, Bhubaneswar as many as 20 to 25 cases per day in early September, the current study was conceived and implemented after reviewing the existing literature. The Involvement in the study was purely voluntary. It was a hospital-based matched case-control study with a total of 186 pairs, 77 in control, and 38 in the case group. Cases and controls were healthcare workers who tested positive and negative, respectively, for COVID-19 by RT-PCR. The study took place from September to October. profession gender age and date of the test were matched to avoid errors and selection bias in the study.

Exposure was defined as the intake of ivermectin and/or hydroxychloroquine and/or vitamin-C and/or other prophylaxis for COVID-19. Data collection and entry was done in Epicollect5, and analysis was performed using STATA version 13. Conditional logistic regression models were used to describe the associated factors for COVID-19 infection.

Ivermectin prophylaxis was taken by 77 controls and 38 cases. The authors found that Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis was associated with 73% reduction of COVID-19 infection among healthcare workers for the following one month, those who were involved in physical activity for more than an hour/day were more likely to contract COVID-19 infection. Type of household, COVID duty, single-dose ivermectin prophylaxis, vitamin-C prophylaxis and hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis were not associated with COVID-19 infection.

The authors concluded that Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated 73% reduction of COVID-19 infection among healthcare workers for the following one-month

The study is currently under pre-print is yet to be peer-reviewed. This finding can be helpful in many cases where drugs like Hydroxychloroquine is contraindicated like certain cardiac conditions.

For further details click on the following link

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.29.20222661v1