According to a phone call to the Poison Control Center, Kentucky residents abused ivermectin (a controversial livestock drug) to treat COVID-19.
Ivermectin is mainly used to treat animal parasites, and the federal health agency has marked it as not suitable for human consumption to treat COVID-19.
In 2020, the Kentucky Poison Control Center stated that they had only received one call of ivermectin abuse, but this year there have been 13 abuse calls. About half of these calls were made in August, and the center advised some callers to either dial 911 or go to the hospital.
“Most of this is because people are trying to treat COVID,” center director Ashley Webb told Louisville messenger magazine.
Of these calls, 75% of people bought ivermectin from a feed store or farm supply store and used the drug to treat themselves.
“These products are not formulated for humans,” Weber said. “The effect of ivermectin in animals is different from that in humans, so the doses will not be equal. It is almost impossible to measure the appropriate dose for humans…beyond this concentration.”
She added that the ivermectin products sold in the farm supply store are “made for livestock such as horses and cattle, which are much heavier than humans”.
Weber urged people to switch to vaccinations. He said: “There are safe and effective vaccines. This is the way people should prevent COVID-19.”
Dr. Hugh Shoff, deputy chief medical officer of the Department of Health at the University of Louisville, also told the community not to use ivermectin at a press conference on Monday.
“Ivermectin cannot treat COVID,” Shoff said. “It can’t prevent COVID. It can’t treat the symptoms of COVID. The idea that it can be used to treat COVID does not exist…now there is no evidence that it can help people. What it can do is hurt people.”
According to data released by the Kentucky Department of Public Health, a total of 7,764 people have died in the state, and there are currently 577,051 positive cases of COVID-19.
Ivermectin approved Food and Drug Administration Used in humans to treat certain parasitic infections. But federal regulators stated that there is no evidence that it is effective against COVID-19 and warned that high doses may be dangerous.
“People who take inappropriate high doses of ivermectin in excess of the FDA recommended dose may experience toxic effects,” the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Said. The effects range from nausea and vomiting to seizures, coma and death.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated that it has received “multiple reports that patients need medical support and hospitalization after self-administering equine ivermectin.”
Despite this, the CDC stated that ivermectin prescriptions have increased significantly in the past few weeks.
The agency reported: “Since early July 2021, the outpatient ivermectin prescriptions have again started to increase rapidly. In the week ending August 13, 2021, the number of prescriptions reached more than 88,000. This is higher than before the pandemic. The baseline has increased by 24 times.”
In the country’s latest wave of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, calls to poison control centers regarding ivermectin exposure have surged and tripled.
Officials in Florida, Mississippi, and Nevada reported an increase in calls about the deworming drug.
Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images
