Well, coronavirus has been spreading rapidly worldwide and scientists, medical experts, phamaceutical companies have been researching to come up with a cure for the deadly virus. While medical experts have said that it will take atleast a little over a year to bring a vaccine in the market, an anti-parasitic drug that is available globally has been found to kill COVID-19 in the lab just within 48 hours, a report said.
A study led by Monash University's Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity shows that a single dose of the Ivermectin drug could possibly stopp SARS-CoV-2 virus from growing.
Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr Kylie Wagstaff said that they had found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA (effectively removed all genetic material of the virus) by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it, reported a local media.
The reports of this study has been published in Antiviral Research.
However, while it is yet to be ascertained how the Ivermectin works on the virus, reports say that the "drug would likely stop the virus dampening the host cells ability to clear it."
Now, it the scientists responsibility to determine correct human dosage to ensure that the dosage level is safe for humans.
While we face a global pandemic, realistically it is going to take a while for a vaccine to be availabe broadly in the markets.
However, it is of utmost importance that before ivermectin is used to combat the virus, funding is needed for its pre-clinical testing and clinical trials.
Ivermectin is an FDA approved anti-parasitic drug that is also known to be an effective drug in vitro against HUV, influenza and dengue.
So far, over a million people have tested positive to the deadly virus globally and 59,000 people have succumbed to it. As of Saturday morning, the US has registered 7,152 coronavirus deaths, with New York, the epicentre of the pandemic in the country, accounting for 1,867 of the total count, according to figures from the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
The US also has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world at 277,953.
New York accounts for 102,863, while other states with over 10,000 cases include New Jersey, California, and Michigan, Xinhua news agency reported citing the figures.
