Ivermectin failed to prevent older adults with COVID-19 from progressing to severe disease compared with standard of care alone, an open-label randomized trial in Malaysia found.
Among 490 patients, 21.6% of those given ivermectin plus standard of care progressed to severe disease versus 17.3% of those who received standard of care alone, reported Steven Chee Loon Lim, MRCP, of Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital in Malaysia, and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine.
There were also no significant differences between groups in terms of onset of deterioration (3.2 days in the intervention group vs 2.9 in controls), or any other secondary outcomes.
Lim’s group noted that while prior trials found no benefit with ivermectin for COVID, it is still “widely prescribed,” despite guidance from the World Health Organization to restrict use of the drug to clinical trials.
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Study limitations included its open-label design, the fact that the study was not powered to assess the effect of ivermectin on COVID mortality, and that the findings may not be generalizable to all populations, as the study participants were older adults.
The authors were unequivocal in their conclusions: “The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19,” they wrote.
