By Lynn Allison From Newsmax

A study to be released next month found that ivermectin, an inexpensive drug used to treat head lice, could be a potentially effective tool in the COVID-19 battle. According to the results of 11 trials involving 1,400 patients, researchers said eight of the 573 COVID-19 patients who received ivermectin died, compared to 44 of the 510 who got placebos.

According to the Daily Mail, the observational studies revealed that the prescription-only drug appeared to accelerate the removal of the virus from the body. Ivermectin is used to fight parasites like lice and scabies and is also used in a skin cream to treat rosacea. It’s also used in the veterinary world to treat intestinal organisms such as hookworms and roundworms.

Dr. Andrew Hill, of the Pharmacology Department of Liverpool University, who is a leading expert in HIV, analyzed the data and said the drug could be “transformational” in the treating COVID-19.

Dr. Jean-Jacques Rajter, of Florida’s Broward Health Medical Center recently told Newsmax TV that scientific trials suggest that ivermectin could be useful in treating the coronavirus.

Rajter was one of seven researchers from the Broward Health Medical Center who, after learning of ivermectin’s success in prohibiting replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a laboratory, reviewed 280 cases of patients with COVID-19 who were — and were not treated — with ivermectin. Their results were published in October in the medical journal Chestnet.

Patients who received ivermectin had a mortality rate of 15% compared to 25% who did not receive the drug. The results were even more significant for COVID-19 patients with “severe pulmonary involvement.”

The mortality rate was only 38% for those patients who received ivermectin compared with 80.7% for the patients that did not receive it.

According to the Daily Mail, scientists believe that ivermectin works by paralyzing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and “overwhelming its nervous system” to prevent replication. However, other scientists said they were skeptical about the findings and suggested that more studies are needed before including ivermectin in the COVID-19 medical toolbox.

Upcoming trials of the drug including more than 7,000 volunteers are expected to be published in the next few months.

“If we see these same trends observed consistently across more studies than this is really going to be a transformational treatment,” said Hill, according to the Daily Mail.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert to consumers who may self-medicate by taking ivermectin products that are not prescribed by a licensed health care provider and obtained from a legitimate source.

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