Friday, January 1, 2021

First country bans ivermectin, a lifesaver for Covid--will the US be next?

Ivermectin, a cheap generic drug used for hookworm, heartworm and scabies, with a half life causing it to remain in your system for months, is used as a "worming" medicine in children, dogs, horses.  Due to its tremendous value as a highly safe and effective drug, a Nobel Prize was awarded to its developers in 2015.

Serendipitously, it was found to be extremely effective in Covid-19, for both prevention and treatment.  It is even effective at a late stage of illness, unlike hydroxychloroquine.  The drug seems to work against SARS-CoV-2 even better than antimalarials.  Unlike the chloroquine drugs, its efficacy was only established during the past several months.  Many studies now prove its value in Covid-19.

Ivermectin's routine use in places like Africa probably contributed to Africa's extraordinary resistance to Covid-19, where rates of death are a small fraction what they are in the US. Most African countries have reported death rates from Covid-19 between 1% and 10% that of the US.

A US Senate hearing led by Senator Ron Johnson on December 8 called as witnesses doctors who were using the drug, who discussed its extreme benefit in the Covid epidemic. 

That appears to have initiated a firestorm of fake news about how the drug is dangerous, unproven, and should not be used for Covid.  The Associated Press led the way, employing journalist Beatrice Dupuy, who specializes in debunking Covid 'misinformation,' and who previously wrote for Teen Vogue. The AP also used Facebook's opaque "fact checking" system.  Then other media outlets followed.

On Christmas Eve, 16 days after the Senate hearing that gave ivermectin its first broad publicity, the government of South Africa banned its use and importation as a treatment for Covid.  No specific safety issue (except the claim the drug could kill you) was cited as the reason.  There is no specific safety issue; the drug is extremely safe, although a large burden of killed worms can sometimes sicken a patient.

This week, South Africa has the highest number of reported new Covid cases in Africa, per capita. Depriving them of effective treatment is obviously criminal.

The chloroquine drugs are also very effective treatments for early Covid, but their use for this purpose has been obfuscated, banned, and interfered with using a huge number of techniques.  I created a list of 53 different strategies that have been employed to prevent chloroquine drugs from being used against Covid in many countries. The strategies were enormously effective.  Few doctors and patients have any idea that real "magic bullets" exist to cure Covid.  Fewer still have realized that by preventing access to highly effective drugs, our rulers deliberately prolong the pandemic and maximize the deaths. 

Make no mistake:  proper use of chloroquine drugs or ivermectin (all cheap and generic) would be a game changer.  They would end the Covid-19 pandemic, with or without vaccines. 

The banning of ivermectin in South Africa is a TRIAL BALLOON--if the powers that be can get away with it there, they will start banning it elsewhere.  Do everything in your power to prevent this from happening. Please spread the word.  Get your doctor to prescribe the drug for you.  Write letters to the newspaper.  Please DO SOMETHING!

UPDATE Jan 7:  Police raid Durban hospital for dispensing ivermectin to patients.

UPDATE Jan 31:  Just a thought.  The "South Africa" coronavirus variant is the one many say could defeat current vaccines. Did the powers that be--those who fraudulently prevented access to hydroxychloroquine--decide that if ivermectin could be banned in South Africa, they could evade the accumulation of evidence that the drug worked perfectly well against the new corona variant?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If cures aren't suppressed, who would bother taking the dodgy vaccines?

Anonymous said...

Dr. Nass,

While I concur wholeheartedly that HCQ/zinc and Ivermectin treatment should both being used and that it is criminal that that they have not in so many "developed" countries, I am somewhat at a loss as to how their use would end the pandemic.

Could you elaborate please?

Thank you for the helpful blog.

Regards,
David

Meryl Nass, M.D. said...

Thanks for letting me know this is not obvious.

The meds work to kill virus. Normally it is said you can spread virus from one day before symptoms start till another 7-8 days. Just like for strep throat, after 1 or 2 days of rx you will no longer be able to spread the infection. That cuts the R zero (average number of people each person infects) in half (approximately) which is less than one. The pandemic dies out when each person infects less than one other person. It grows when each person infects more than one.

If used prophylactically and for treatment, the pandemic would end even faster.

Anonymous said...

There have been a number of petitions in recent days to try to force the SA government to unban ivermectin. See https://www.change.org/p/president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-africa-has-a-right-to-ivermectin-for-c19/u/28421077?cs_tk=AhthC_NPPvLSGWcdEmAAAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvHVsrADR04tcnWNHQChp1ME%3D&utm_campaign=60a30c4b5cae41ca9f81bab8d2261573&utm_content=initial_v0_4_0&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_update&utm_term=cs

and

https://www.change.org/p/president-cyril-ramaphosa-south-africa-has-a-right-to-ivermectin-for-c19?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_26672727_en-US%3A4&recruiter=1176374510&recruited_by_id=9a42bf50-5ed6-11eb-945e-7fb495f1f063&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=0c02c7748ef84ef1a553e066bc927020

Unknown said...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/south-africa-allows-use-of-parasite-drug-to-treat-covid-patients