A paper published in Colombia Medica back in December 2020, COVID-19: The Ivermectin African Enigma, talks about how the use of ivermectin in central African countries may have contributed to the decrease in the cases and death of COVID-19.
The African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC)
The World Health Organization has a program called African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC). The program was designed to give ivermectin to participating countries to prevent African river blindness or onchocerciasis.
What is river blindness? According to the World Health Organization fact sheet about Onchocerciasis
- A parasitic worm, Onchocerca volvulus, causes Africa river blindness.
- It is transmitted to humans through exposure to repeated bites of infected blackflies of the genus Simulium
- Symptoms include severe itching, disfiguring skin conditions, and visual impairment, including permanent blindness.
- More than 99% of infected people live in 31 African countries. The disease also exists in some foci in Latin America and Yemen.
- The Global Burden of Disease Study estimated in 2017 that there were 20.9 million prevalent O. volvulus infections worldwide: 14.6 million of the infected people had a skin disease, and 1.15 million had vision loss.
- Community-directed treatment with ivermectin is the core strategy to eliminate onchocerciasis in Africa. In the Americas, the strategy is biannual large-scale treatment with ivermectin.
The APOC program mass distributed ivermectin biannually. The program started in 1995 and lasted until 2015 and intended to treat over 90 million people annually in the 19 countries, protecting an at-risk population of 115 million, and preventing over 40,000 cases of blindness every year.
Countries on the APOC program have lower COVID cases and deaths
The study COVID-19: The Ivermectin African Enigma was done to look into the low number of COVID-19 cases in some African countries. They intended to know if it is associated with ivermectin use.
They found that APOC countries (vs. non-APOC), show 28% lower mortality (0.72; 95% CI: 0.67-0.78) and 8% lower rate of infection (0.92; 95% CI: 0.91-0.93) due to COVID-19.
The graph above can be seen in other websites touting the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19. But there is one problem. The APOC program ended in 2015. The COVID-19 pandemic began in December 2019. That is why the title of their study is COVID-19: The Ivermectin African Enigma.
How can ivermectin still be effective in 2019 if the APOC was discontinued in 2015?
Here is the answer. The WHO continued its Onchocerciasis program from 2017 with The Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN)
One of the objectives of ESPEN is the establishment and 100% geographic coverage of sustainable community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI).
Treatment under the ESPEN Program
The WHO recommends treating onchocerciasis with ivermectin at least once yearly for 10 to 15 years. However, preventive chemotherapy programs are delivered repeatedly in some areas, as discussed in # 4 of Program Stages.
The effect of the community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI) on COVID-19 in Africa was documented in a preprint study from Tokyo Medical Center in Japan. Why COVID-19 is not so spread in Africa: How does Ivermectin affect it?
In that study, the mortality per million and morbidity per million among the non-ivermectin group (countries) is 8.46 and 6.9 fold higher compared to the ivermectin group. The results are represented below.
Ivermectin dose for River Blindness (Onchocerciasis)
Is the dose of ivermectin for onchocerciasis different from the recommendation of the FLCCC for COVID-19, which is 0.2 mg/kg for prophylaxis and 0.4-0.6mg/kg for early treatment?
From drugs.com.
Usual Adult Dose for Onchocerciasis
0.15 mg/kg orally once every 12 months
Patients with heavy ocular infection may require retreatment every 6 months. Retreatment may be considered at intervals as short as 3 months.
Not surprisingly, in January 2021, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has approved the use of ivermectin for COVID-19.
Sept. 10, 2021 Addendum:
Unfortunately, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) bowed to the FDA. A press release on Sept. 3, 2021, from SAHPRA, says,
In a statement on Friday, the authority said its stance was aligned to that of the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that ivermectin did not have proven antiviral properties for Covid-19 treatment.
Maybe SAHPRA should read IVMMETA.COM: A website of studies on Ivermectin’s efficacy.
Knowledge about Covid-19 is rapidly evolving. Information may update as new studies are made. Stay current by subscribing. Feel free to share and like.
Don’t Get Sick!
Related:
- IVMMETA.COM: A website of studies on Ivermectin’s efficacy
- What makes Ivermectin a kick-ass antiviral?
- News that ivermectin overdose is clogging up hospitals is not true
References:
- Guerrero R, Bravo LE, Muñoz E, Ardila EKG, Guerrero E. COVID-19: The Ivermectin African Enigma. Colomb Med (Cali). 2020;51(4):e2014613. Published 2020 Dec 30. doi:10.25100/cm.v51i4.4613
- ESPEN
Image Credit: Children leading blind adults in Africa: By Otis Historical Archives Nat'l Museum of Health & Medicine – originally posted to Flickr as 68-4062-1 (ATED), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5790461
© 2018 – 2021 Asclepiades Medicine, LLC All Rights Reserved
DrJesseSantiano.com does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.