Ivermectin associated with lower mortality than remdesivir

An analysis of the records more than 41,000 patients who had covid-19 and were treated with either ivermectin or remdesivir showed that ivermectin was associated with significantly lower risk of death.

Researchers used data from the TriNetX Research network, a federated EMR network of over 44 healthcare organizations and 68 million patients in the US, to identify covid-19 cases. They identified 1,761,060 patients with a recorded covid-19 infection during the period January 2020 to July 2021. Of these 41,608 patients had received either ivermectin or remdesivir, but not both drugs. They controlled for demographics, comorbidities, and treatments that may affect COVID- 19 survival outcomes: age, gender, race, ethnicity, nicotine use, diabetes mellitus, obesity, chronic lower respiratory disease, ischemic heart diseases, tocilizumab, glucocorticoids, or ventilator use.

In the ivermectin cohort (1,072), the average age was 51.9 + 17.8 years, 43% were male, 60% had glucocorticoids and 1% required ventilator support. In the remdesivir cohort (40,536), average age was 62.0 + 16.0 years, 54% were male, 64% had glucocorticoids and 2% required ventilator support. After propensity score matching and adjusting for potential confounders, ivermectin was associated with reduced mortality compared with remdesivir (OR 0.308, 95% CI (0.198,0.479)), Risk Difference -5.224%, CI (-7.079%,-3.369%), p < 0.0 0 01.

The authors conclude that further double-blinded, placebo-controlled RCTs with large samples are required for a definite conclusion. However, given the wealth of experience with ivermectin treatment for covid-19, the low cost of ivermectin, the low frequency of side effects and the convenience of oral administration, these results appear to reinforce yet further the case for using ivermectin to treat covid-19.

IMI has reported the emerging findings related to ivermectin treatment for covid-19 and reported first-hand testimony from clinicians and researchers. 

Reference

Efimenko J et al Treatment with Ivermectin Is Associated with Decreased Mortality in COVID-19 Patients: Analysis of a National Federated Database. International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2022;116: S40.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2021.12.096