Coronavirus Fight: Scientists Identify COVID-19 Drug That “Kills” the Virus Within 48 Hours

Kill Covid19 Coronavirus

Artists impression of “killing” the COVID-19 coronavirus.

  • While shown to be effective in the lab environment, Ivermectin cannot be used in humans for COVID-19 until further testing and clinical trials have been completed to confirm the effectiveness of the drug at levels safe for human dosing.
  • For any medical questions you have about your health, please consult your health care provider.
  • The potential use of Ivermectin to combat COVID-19 remains unproven, and depends on pre-clinical testing and clinical trials to progress the work.
  • A Monash University-led study has shown that an anti-parasitic drug already available around the world can “kill” the virus within 48 hours in cell culture.
  • Scientists showed that a single dose of the drug, Ivermectin, could stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus growing in cell culture.
  • The next steps are to determine the correct human dosage – ensuring the doses shown to effectively treat the virus in vitro are safe for humans.
  • The use of Ivermectin to combat COVID-19 depends on pre-clinical testing and clinical trials, with funding urgently required to progress the work.
  • 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.
  • This Monash University-led collaborative study was published in Antiviral Research, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by Elsevier.

A collaborative study led by the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) with the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), a joint venture of the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital, has shown that an anti-parasitic drug already available around the world kills the virus within 48 hours.

The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr. Kylie Wagstaff, who led the study, said the scientists showed that the drug, Ivermectin, stopped the SARS-CoV-2 virus growing in cell culture within 48 hours.

“We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it,” Dr. Wagstaff said.

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. 

Dr. Wagstaff cautioned that the tests conducted in the study were in vitro and that trials needed to be carried out in people.

“Ivermectin is very widely used and seen as a safe drug. We need to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it at in humans will be effective – that’s the next step,” Dr. Wagstaff said.

“In times when we’re having a global pandemic and there isn’t an approved treatment, if we had a compound that was already available around the world then that might help people sooner. Realistically it’s going to be a while before a vaccine is broadly available.

Although the mechanism by which Ivermectin works on the virus is not known, it is likely, based on its action in other viruses, that it works to stop the virus ‘dampening down’ the host cells’ ability to clear it, Dr. Wagstaff said.

Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Dr. Leon Caly, a Senior Medical Scientist at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL) at the Doherty Institute where the experiments with live coronavirus were conducted, is the study’s first author.

“As the virologist who was part of the team who were first to isolate and share SARS-COV2 outside of China in January 2020, I am excited about the prospect of Ivermectin being used as a potential drug against COVID-19,”  Dr. Caly said.

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 have been researching Ivermectin for more than 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 would depend on the results of further pre-clinical testing and ultimately clinical trials, with funding urgently required to keep progressing the work, Dr. Wagstaff said.

Reference: “The FDA-approved Drug Ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro” by Leon Caly, Julian D. Druce, Mike G. Catton, David A. Jans and Kylie M. Wagstaff, 3 April 2020, Antiviral Research.
DOI: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104787

Ivermectin Information From Wikipedia

Ivermectin is a medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations. This includes head lice, scabies, river blindness (onchocerciasis), strongyloidiasis, trichuriasis, ascariasis, and lymphatic filariasis.

Ivermectin was discovered in 1975 and came into medical use in 1981. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. The wholesale cost in the developing world for the tablets is about US $0.12 for a course of treatment. In the United States, the costs is less than US$50. In other animals, it is used to prevent and treat heartworm among other diseases.

25 Comments on "Coronavirus Fight: Scientists Identify COVID-19 Drug That “Kills” the Virus Within 48 Hours"

  1. Victor Perton | April 5, 2020 at 11:18 am | Reply

    Terrific positive news. Thanks.

  2. Well frankly if it is in use for many things already, if I had C-19 & you asked me if you could try that I would say ‘yes’ with no hesitation….for heaven’s sake give the patient’s the say-so – they know what their risks are …..and it can kill off anything else that it’s good for at the same time !!

  3. Vincent Strout | April 5, 2020 at 2:59 pm | Reply

    It is approved in humans for river blindness so what’s the problem.?

  4. Just use the drug if it’s effective. The media has already accounted for thousands of deaths. Everyone could have already been taking high doses of vitamin C if not for the lying media. We could have been vigorously using the drugs the President recommended if not for the lying media. No one trusts anything you people say anymore.

  5. It is safe drug given to kids so I presume doctors will try this to save patients ..

  6. When will all trial gets completed for using in mass number,I mean still how many days are required to make sure that it can be used for covid19 all the people

  7. If this has been in use to take care of so many diseases already for so many years, why not try it on a COVID patient who opts in for this as a drug not yet approved as a treatment for this disease but which scientists think can be useful against C-19. Better to do this than to take 6 months to a year to get an FDA approval for using this against C-19 when so many people are getting sick every day as it is.

  8. Mansel Thomas | April 6, 2020 at 6:36 am | Reply

    As a retiree medical scientist the time has come to take risks
    If there is a possibility and I honestly think it will work
    It should be used on patients who are prepared to take
    It
    It is time for ethics and humanitie

  9. I like how everyone here is using logic. Don’t you know in today’s hyper partisan world there is no room for logic. Please, Please have someone like Barack Obama say something positive about this drug. I just pray no one tells Trump this exists, otherwise he might say something about it and the whole media complex will throw it in the trash bin with Chloriquine.

  10. People don’t trust the media at all especially for our health and this drug already is FDA approved so get it started and forget about the media that is more harmful than the virus 🦠

  11. Surely the company who originally licensed Ivermectin must have data on blood concentration levels with different oral dosing. The lab want to only use a comparable concentration in vitro to see if this has the already observed effect. If this is possible and kills Covid19 surely it is worth trying in people who get more seriously ill.

  12. Id possibly effective why not run the trial in humans since it is a drug already used… I meen s#!t I can go buy that stuff at the local ranch and feed store.

  13. Pl contact Bill Gates for funding your study .

  14. “Human trials expected to begin in 18 months….” Blah, Blah, Blah….
    Just like hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin is already tested and deemed safe – and thus, available to doctors and pharmacists for “off label” use at the discretion of the treating physician.
    They can prescribe pretty much anything they see fit, and they don’t need the permission of the Main Stream Media.
    One can tell the truth at hand by the cacophony of rabid voices that rise against it, the same old monsters: deep state politicians, bureaucrats, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NBC, New York Times, AP, Reuters, NPR, BBC…et al.
    But, We The People are listening to the new media, voices of rationality and common sense – on the internet – your ratings and circulation do not lie. Your tiresome lies are falling on deaf ears.
    Eggs are bad for you…Butter is bad for you…Margarine is fine…Ibuprofen is totally safe…
    Same old deep state Rockefeller medicine models.
    We are onto you; our abuse at the hands of your media dogs and systematic abuse is going to stop.

  15. Could this be a reason why children seem less affected by Covid?
    I remember as a child lice was quite common as it spread at school,maybe more children have had lice medication and thus my unscientific reasoning,still it’s an idea.

  16. The dosage required to kill SARS-CoV-2 in a human host is the real question? Is it the same dose that also kills parasites or is there a higher, potentially toxic, dose required? Hopefully it would be a dosage already prescribed within the standard regime for conditions for which the drug is currently in usage.

  17. Swati Chandran | April 7, 2020 at 8:18 am | Reply

    This is surely the best news so far, if the drug is already in use – why to wait for another approval…. by so and so. It should be administered to the patients who are already dying, so atleast they have a hope of survival and if it works then we do know that we do have a terrific solution – to save the many lives – Globally.

  18. Dr M Sethumadhavan, | April 7, 2020 at 11:35 am | Reply

    Ivermectin as a single dose of12 mgm for adults & 6 mgm for children has been in use for decades without adverse effects
    Definitely it can be tried in Covid 19 infections

  19. Darlene lachapelle | April 7, 2020 at 11:50 am | Reply

    Im so sick with covid19 and my doctor wont let me have it. I feel like im dying i need help. Please let me try this please.

    • Richard G Fraunfelder | April 10, 2020 at 7:44 pm | Reply

      Darlene,??? What do you mean your doc won’t let you have it? I have have enough to treat 8-1250lb. horses. You can order it online. Forget your doctor, he or she is an idiot that is only scared of being liable….that is why your doc isn’t giving it to you. Go to an online farm supply store, like valleyvet….and order a syringe (tube) of Duramectin for you and your family. Squirt out the amount for your weight, or more…..it’s a yellow jell. It’s sort of like eating toothpaste, … just a little weird. I took 125-horse-pounds worth, the other day, … I’m fine. There is a human medical treatment that uses Ivermectin at 100x (something like that) the concentration. I’m glad I found your post. I was afraid that this is what the doctors would do…not treat until there is an FDA seal of approval for this specific usage.
      The drug was found when scientists found weird behaving petri-dish cultures taken from a Japanese golf course. It costs $3.18 per tube (plastic syringe) at that online store. I have been using it for at least a decade, on my cats and dogs, for bothersome ear-mites and for intestinal hook-worms, etc.. Order it, get better soon. Your doc’s license (his income) is what is keeping him from giving a pill form to you.
      Take care. I am about to put this info about Ivermectin 1.87% and where to get it on a website so people will get the info.
      The website is called 2020coronavirus stimuluscheck.com … I was thinking that the name would be a popular search for people,… and I could spread the word. Ivermectin paste (as the horse med is called) dissipates from your system very quickly, within 3 to 4 days. You need to be infected with the virus first, before it will eliminate it and make you immune from COVID-19. But if you already have the infection in you it should eliminate it quickly. I am an engineer and I try to learn all I can about Med science and stuff. I predict, you will be fine if you get some of this stuff. I wish you and everybody well, as we experience this wacky pandemic.

  20. Derrick Wallace | April 19, 2020 at 5:27 am | Reply

    If this an option out there why not allow this to be given to those who are sick. We must take some chances with anything out there to have cease fire of mass killings. I’m a black healthy author who reads and write this is not hard if this drug been out there for sometime. Again what we have to lose than save a life. Lives do matter to everyone this COVID-19 is no joke!

  21. Dennis Abrameit | July 5, 2020 at 5:55 pm | Reply

    I was treating him for headlice with ivermectin and it just happened to cure his Corona problem also(said the doctor who wanted to use a non fda approved treatment for Corona just an idea,bet you could find some lice if you needed too to make it legal and save a life.Is this idea dumb if you were dying would you hate me for suggesting it?

  22. Ivermectin has been around and used since 1981. It’s obviously more safe and has proven to be effective. Unlike this not vaccine. It’s also been used on horses for decades. The reason Texas and Florida are open for business is that they have been using ivermectin in the hospitals to treat covid and it works. But big pharma doesn’t want the world to find out. India gave all their residents a 2¢ blister pack of ivermectin and are now opened up as well. They will not make billions off a not vaccine if people find out that something cheap actually treats it. Also the not vaccine has nano technology in it so I’m definitely saying no thanks to that.

  23. Dr M Sethumadhavan how often do you take this?

  24. Ivermectin “works” to eliminate intestinal parasites. It’s a STRE-TCH but this might point to the possibility that Covid “hides” in the intestinal tract… PERHAPS as a function of RNA “adoption” of viral RNA (or rRNA?) by e-coli populating the lower intestinal tract.
    That said, another antiprotozoal, Tinidiazole (Tiniba, trade name elsewhere) saved my life in the Himal. I contracted cholera deep in the Eastern Bush. It works by discharging the intestinal lining and, with it, the offending organism. The effects are quite “dramatic” with the first dose and life-threatening if one exceeds the recommended second dosage. Indeed, this deviation can and WILL result in intestinal perforation and DEATH.
    I am bringing this to light NOT AS A RECOMMENDATION but as a recommendation AGAINST self-prescribing/dosing. My “life saver” was prescribed by an MD, versed in Third World diseases and their pathology.
    I feel compelled here, because I believe that it is ONLY a matter of time before Tinidiazole pops up in the popular “wisdom” as another cure-all. And, as such, it is bound for abuse by the “commons” who typically don’t read the instructions on their medications. As my prescribing physician, mentor, friend and colleague once observed:THE DOCTOR WHO SELF-PRESCRIBES, HAS A FOOL FOR A PATIENT.
    🦋

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