Oxford University explores anti- parasitic drug ivermectin as Covid-19 treatment

The University of Oxford said on Wednesday it was testing anti-parasitic drug ivermectin as a possible treatment for Covid-19, as part of a British government-backed study that aims to aid recoveries in non-hospital settings.

Ivermectin resulted in a reduction of virus replication in laboratory studies, the university said, adding that a small pilot showed giving the drug early could reduce viral load and the duration of symptoms in some patients with mild Covid-19.

Dubbed PRINCIPLE, the British study in January showed that antibiotics azithromycin and doxycycline were generally ineffective against early-stage Covid-19.

While the World Health Organization, and European and US regulators have recommended against using ivermectin in Covid-19 patients, it is being used to treat the illness in some countries, including India.

"By including ivermectin in a large-scale trial like PRINCIPLE, we hope to generate robust evidence to determine how effective the treatment is against Covid-19, and whether there are benefits or harms associated with its use," co-lead investigator of the trial Chris Butler said.

People with severe liver conditions, who are on blood-thinning medication warfarin, or taking other treatments known to interact with ivermectin, will be excluded from the trial, the university added.

Ivermectin is the seventh treatment to be investigated in the trial, and is currently being evaluated alongside antiviral drug favipiravir, the university said. 

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Weight Loss, Lung Lesions Among Severe Symptoms as New Covid Variant Found; Covaxin May Help

Warning of severe symptoms, Pune’s National Institute of Virology has found a new Covid-19 variant — B.1.1.28.2 — through genome sequencing of samples from international travelers from the United Kingdom and Brazil.

According to a report in Times of India, the findings of the pathogenicity evaluation show increased disease severity and point towards the need for screening of vaccine efficacy. The findings of the pre-print study have been published online on bioRxiv.

The new variant can lead to body weight loss, viral replication in the respiratory tract, lung lesions and was found to cause severe lung pathology in infected Syrian hamster model, the study said. However, two-dose Covaxin regimen has shown to significantly boost antibody and neutralising efficacy against the variant. This was found in an uncorrected manuscript of a separate study by NIV.

The study on the new variant pointed towards the necessity of genomic surveillance and characterisation of SARS-CoV-2 variants that will help to understand their pathogenicity and immune escape potential for preparedness of counter-measures.

According to the report, genome sequencing labs are looking at mutants, which have significant potential of severely affecting disease transmission. Currently, 10 national labs under Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genome Sequencing Consortia have sequenced around 30,000 samples. The government plans to ramp up genome sequencing and recently added 18 more labs to the consortium.

The detection of the new variant comes a week after the WHO said that only one strain of the Covid-19 Delta variant first detected in India was now considered “of concern”, while two other strains had been downgraded.

The B.1.617 variant of the virus, which has in part been blamed for India’s explosive outbreak, has been dubbed a triple mutant variant since it is split into three lineages.

The UN health agency last month declared the entire strain a “variant of concern”, or VOC, but on June 2, it said only one of the sub-lineages deserved that label. “It has become evident that greater public health risks are currently associated with B.1.617.2, while lower rates of transmission of other lineages have been observed,” the World Health Organization said in its weekly epidemiological update on the pandemic.

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