The Pandemic COVID-19 is in nook and corner of the world now. The doctors, researchers are doing their best to find the antidote of this disease and working hard. Recently, researchers have found that already available anti-parasitic drugs can kill novel coronavirus developed in cell cultures within 48 hours.
Ivermectin, the drug which stopped the virus, SARS-CoV-2, from the growing the cell within the 48 hours, according to the study which was published in journal Antiviral Research. The co-author Kylie Wagstaff of Monash University in Australia said that “We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it.”
According to the scientist, ivermectin is an approved antiparasitic drug that has also resulted effective in vitro against a wide range of viruses including HIV, Dengue, Influenza and Zaika virus.
Wagstaff said, “Ivermectin is very widely used and seen as a safe drug. We need to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it in humans will be effective – that’s the next step.” She further added, “In times when we’re having a global pandemic and there isn’t an approved treatment, if we had a compound that was already available around the world then that might help people sooner.”
However, the mechanism on which Ivermectine works on the virus is not known, but according to the scientists it is likely based on its action in another virus, it works to stop the virus’s ‘dampening down’ the host cells which able them to clear it.
The co-author of the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, Leon Caly said, “”As the virologist who was part of the team who were first to isolate and share SARS-COV2 outside of China in January 2020, I am excited about the prospect of Ivermectin being used as a potential drug against COVID-19.”
But scientists further explained that the use of Ivermectin to fight with COVID-19 would probably depend on the results of future pre-clinic testing and at last clinical trails.
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