Amid a barrage of research on finding treatment for brand spanking new coronavirus, Australian scientists have found that a typical anti-parasitic drug killed the SARS-CoV-2 virus, growing in cell culture, within 48 hours in lab settings.
Ivermectin is an FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug that has also been shown to be effective in vitro against a broad range of viruses including HIV, Dengue, Influenza, and Zika virus.
Australian scientists discovered anti-parasitic drug kills Coronavirus within 48 hours
Published within the journal Antiviral Research, the study from Monash University showed that one dose of Ivermectin could stop the coronavirus growing in cell culture — effectively eradicating all genetic material of the virus within two days.
“We found that even one dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours which even at 24 hours there was a very significant reduction in it,” said study lead author Dr. Kylie Wagstaff.
Dr. Wagstaff, however, cautioned that the tests conducted within the study were in vitro which trials needed to be dispensed in people.
“Ivermectin is extremely widely used and seen as a secure drug. we’d like to work out now whether the dosage you’ll be able to use it at in humans is effective – that is the next step,” Wagstaff informed.
In times when we’re having a world pandemic and there is not an approved treatment, “if we had a compound that was already available around the world then that may help people sooner”.
“Realistically it’s visiting be ages before a vaccine is broadly available,” she said.
Although the mechanism by which Ivermectin works on the virus isn’t known, it’s likely, supported its action in other viruses, that it works to prevent the virus ‘dampening down’ the host cells’ ability to clear it.
Dr. Wagstaff made a previous breakthrough finding on Ivermectin in 2012 when she identified the drug and its antiviral activity with Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Professor David Jans, also an author on this paper.
Professor Jans and his team are researching Ivermectin for quite 10 years with different viruses.
Dr. Wagstaff and Professor Jans started investigating whether it worked on the SARS-CoV-2 virus as soon as the pandemic was known to have started.
The use of Ivermectin to combat COVID-19 depends on pre-clinical testing and clinical trials, with funding urgently required to progress the work, the researchers noted.
News first published on: https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/anti-parasitic-drug-killed-coronavirus-within-48-hours-in-lab-australian-scientists
