Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) of 2019, caused by the New Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2 has become a top priority global pandemic as we are all aware of. Eighty-one percent of cases are classified as mild for which symptomatic home treatment and clinical deterioration monitoring are recommended, as said by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite symptomatic treatment, a therapeutic drug is urgently needed to limit the course of the infection. Ivermectin, a popular anti-parasitic agent, acts on SARS-CoV-2 by preventing viral proteins from entering the host's cell nucleus. A recent virtual drug screening process identified doxycycline as a potential inhibitor of the papain-like SARS-CoV-2 protease. An observational study in which patients were treated with a single dose of ivermectin and multiple doses of doxycycline to treat COVID-19 showed significant improvements in symptoms and highly responded to viral.
A recent retrospective study found that hospital patients who received ivermectin with other treatments such asazithromycin and hydroxychloroquine had lower mortality than patients who did not receive ivermectin. Further studies are needed to verify these results. This need is reinforced by the observation that SARS-CoV-2 multiplies rapidly in the airways and that indications from animal models show three times higher ivermectin levels in lung tissue than in plasma 1 week after oral administration. This pilot study was conducted to evaluate the rapidity of virus clearance and safety of a 5-day cycle of ivermectin or a single dose of ivermectin with a 5 day cycle of dose of doxycycline in the treatment of mild COVID-19 in adults.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted to determine the rapidity of virus clearance and the safety of ivermectin in adult patients with SARS-CoV-2. The study included 72 hospitalized patients (between 18 to 65 years of age) in Dhaka, Bangladesh who were assigned to one of three groups: one dose of oral ivermectin of 12 mg daily for 5 days, oral ivermectin in combination with doxycycline (12 mg ivermectin in single doses and 200 mg of doxycycline am Day 1, followed by 100 mg every 12 hours for the next 4 days) and a placebo control group.
