Scabies medicine as Covid Cure?

 a lot of medicines appear to shorten the symptoms of Covid when people start them early, when symptoms just develop. However, there is a question if they lower the death rate (HCQ, steroids, zinc).

the problem is partly because in large studies they don't show much help, maybe because the death rate is so low, or maybe because studies are only of people who started treatment outside the critical window of time. (for example, for herpes or for influenza, you have to start it right away, or it doesn't work, which is why most of us just gave prescriptions to our patients with herpes to start it at first sign of symptoms).

But now the latest buzz is to use Ivermectin, a medicine used for animals and also for scabies.

I understand this was widely used in India after they found HCQ was a weak treatment, and they found it treats but also might be able to use to prevent cases. The link is to an antivax site, so be cautioned. 

includes this tweet: (/s)

While the World is on a vaccine frenzy, the Indian Government is distributing a home Covid Kit with Zinc, Doxycycline and Ivermectin. The cost $2.65 per person. pic.twitter.com/CphhwO8pXE

— Sam Bardo (@SamBardo1) December 16, 2020

But here is a discussion by Dr. John Campbell with a doctor who did a detailed study of the various studies on it's use.

  Caution: this discussion is quite technical.

.....

I understand that the US experts warn against self dosing, 

But the CDC article on the treatment can be found here.

ironically, the article says it's hard to evaluate Ivermectin because a lot of those treated also got doxycycline, HCQ or other medicines that might treat Covid.

WTF? So they say these medicines don't work, but hey, maybe they do and that's why we can't figure out if Ivermectin works.

Don't ask me. All I know is when I developed signs of either influenza or covid, I took Azithromycin and prednisone and got better in two days (usually with a viral bronchitis, it takes five days...hmmm). But since I never went for a Covid test, I just assume it was a cold.

the experts of course warn against using the horse version of the medicine. That last part makes me laugh, because when I worked in rural areas, farmers and ranchers often used animal antibiotics to save themselves a trip to the doctor, since often they lived 50 miles from town and just couldn't take off the time.

the dirty little secret is that people will self dose no matter what, and that if a physician is faced with an infection that could kill, we throw everything but the kitchen sink at the high risk patients, because hey, they might work.

Here in the Philippines, when the India data started coming in last year, our DOH advised against it, and now in March they continue to say the same thing.

the problem? They cite an article in JAMA about it's use in Colombia. Fair enough. 

But then you see the problem with the study: Remember when I noted that anti viral medicines for herpes and Influenza don't work unless you give them right away? 

Well, duh:

In this study based in Cali, Colombia, nearly 500 adults with mild disease who had symptoms for 7 days, volunteered to help test the drug....

italics mine. 

Half the volunteers got the drug for five days, the other half got a placebo, and standard care. ... The patients who got the drug said their symptoms subsided by 10 days. For the group that got the placebo, it was 12 days. Two days was not considered a “significant” improvement.

Sigh.

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South America has been badly hit with covid, maybe because of a genetic reason since most there, including my son and his family, have some AmerIndian blood.

That country has been hit so badly with covid that it has it's own Wikipedia page. (and remember, the cost of the test is high so many will die at home so the statistics might not be accurate). 

and Colombia has a lot of refugees: many internally displaced people because of the war there, but in the north, there are many who fled Venezuela... alas, in recent monthhs, because Colombia (and Brazil) are now in crisis, many are now going home...

 but with Biden essentially saying "Y'all come to America", some are trying to travel north. But that means travel through the notorious Darien Gap...a place without a road and with many many bad guys.

Michael Yon has a dispatch from northern Colombia about these refugees.

Sigh.