Therapeutic potential of ivermectin as add on treatment in COVID 19: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

The current management of COVID-19 is mostly limited to general supportive care and symptomatic treatment. Ivermectin is a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic drug used widely for the treatment of onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. Apart from its anti-parasitic effect it also exhibits antiviral activity against a number of viruses both in vitro and in vivo. Hence, we conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the currently available data on the therapeutic potential of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 as add on therapy. A total of 629 patients were included in the 4 studies and all were COVID-19 RT-PCR positive. Among them, 397 patients received ivermectin along with usual therapy. The random effect model showed the overall pooled OR to be 0.53 (95%CI: 0.29 to0.96) for the primary outcome (all-cause mortality) which was statistically significant (P=0.04). Similarly, the random effect model revealed that adding ivermectin led to significant clinical improvement compared to usual therapy (OR=1.98, 95% CI: 1.11 to 3.53, P=0.02). However, this should be inferred cautiously as the quality of evidence is very low. Currently, many clinical trials are on-going, and definitive evidence for repurposing this drug for COVID-19 patients will emerge only in the future.