PORTLAND, Ore. — We continue to receive a lot of questions about COVID-19 and the different treatment methods circulating online. Lately, many of those questions have been about an anti-parasite drug called ivermectin.
According to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), ivermectin is not a safe treatment option to prevent or cure COVID-19. In fact, large doses of ivermectin can cause serious harm.
THE QUESTION
Is ivermectin a safe and effective treatment option for COVID-19?
THE SOURCES
- U.S Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
- Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU)
- Dr. Payal Kohli, KGW medical expert
THE ANSWER
No, people should not be using ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.
WHAT WE FOUND
Ivermectin is a drug that is most commonly used to treat or prevent parasites in animals like horses and other livestock. In recent weeks, the FDA has received multiple reports of people being hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin.
The FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, but not COVID-19, which is a virus.
On Tuesday, Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU) put out a statement warning people against using ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.
The Oregon Poison Center at OHSU has seen nine cases of intentional ivermectin misuse this month alone. For comparison, the center managed just three cases of intentional misuse in all of 2020.
Taking large doses of ivermectin is dangerous and can cause serious harm.
If you have a prescription for ivermectin for an FDA-approved use, get it from a legitimate source and take it exactly as prescribed.
All of this was echoed by KGW medical expert Dr. Payal Kohli, who said unproven therapies are not worth the risk at this point in the pandemic.
"We are not at the stage anymore when we need to be taking unsubstantiated therapies that offer no benefit and can offer potential risks for the treatment of COVID. We have a number of different therapies out there, including monoclonal antibodies that have been reviewed by the FDA under emergency use authorization and are effective in changing the course of the illness. So taking unsubstantiated therapies because of social media hype is definitely not something we need to be doing right now," Dr. Kohli said.
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