August 31, 2021 – According to a recent New York Times report, demand for a drug meant for horses has surged to the point where pharmacists are reporting shortages. The drug, ivermectin, is typically used to treat parasitic worms “but has repeatedly failed in clinical trials to help people infected with the coronavirus,” the report said.
Prescriptions for ivermectin have seen a sharp rise in recent weeks, jumping to more than 88,000 per week in mid-August from a pre-pandemic baseline average of 3,600 per week, according to researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While sometimes given to humans in small doses for head lice, scabies and other parasites, ivermectin is more commonly used in animals. Physicians are raising alarms about a growing number of people getting the drug from livestock supply centers, where it can come in highly concentrated paste or liquid forms.
“Everyone wants some cure for Covid because it’s such a devastating illness,” Dr. Shawn Varney, a toxicologist and medical director for the South Texas Poison Center, told the Times. “I plead with people to stop using ivermectin and get the vaccine because it’s the best protection we have at this point. Everything else is risk after risk.”
Business Insider reported that the FDA said in a statement that it received reports that people were being hospitalized after using the drug. The FDA acknowledged that initial research was being carried out on the drug’s efficacy but that the formula used for animals differed greatly from what humans were supposed to take.