ArticleEClinicalMedicine2021
Antiviral effect of high-dose ivermectin in adults with COVID-19: A proof-of-concept randomized trial.
Article in EClinicalMedicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. It is linked to trial NCT04381884 (A Pilot, Proof of Concept Trial to Prove Ivermectin Efficacy in the Reduction of SARS-CoV-2 Replication at Early Stages of COVID-19), which is not on this map. Cited by 48 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Pilot, Proof of Concept Trial to Prove Ivermectin Efficacy in the Reduction of SARS-CoV-2 Replication at Early Stages of COVID-19
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 99 citations in OpenAlex.
- Drug treatments for mild or moderate covid-19: systematic review and network meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Results of a systematic review and meta-analysis of early studies on ivermectin in SARS-CoV-2 infection.GeroScience · 2023Pooled it
- Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Ivermectin under scrutiny: a systematic review and meta-analysis of efficacy and possible sources of controversies in COVID-19 patients.Virology journal · 2022Pooled it
- Bias as a source of inconsistency in ivermectin trials for COVID-19: A systematic review. Ivermectin's suggested benefits are mainly based on potentially biased results.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Is Ivermectin Effective in Treating COVID-19?Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.QJM : monthly journal of the Association of Physicians · 2021Pooled it
- Efficacy of COVID-19 Treatments: A Bayesian Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Frontiers in public health · 2021Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of oral ivermectin in the treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 patients: a multi-centre double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- Efficacy of single-dose and double-dose ivermectin early treatment in preventing progression to hospitalization in mild COVID-19: A multi-arm, parallel-group randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.Respirology (Carlton, Vic.) · 2022Trial
- Efficacy of Ivermectin Treatment on Disease Progression Among Adults With Mild to Moderate COVID-19 and Comorbidities: The I-TECH Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA internal medicine · 2022Trial
- High-dose ivermectin for early treatment of COVID-19 (COVER study): a randomised, double-blind, multicentre, phase II, dose-finding, proof-of-concept clinical trial.International journal of antimicrobial agents · 2022Trial
- Intensive Treatment With Ivermectin and Iota-Carrageenan as Pre-exposure Prophylaxis for COVID-19 in Health Care Workers From Tucuman, Argentina.American journal of therapeutics · 2021Trial
- The impact of ivermectin on COVID-19 outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2025Article
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- The effect of intravenous lipid emulsion (ILE) on the pharmacokinetic/toxicokinetic dispositions of ivermectin and carprofen in rabbits.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- Effectiveness of Drug Repurposing and Natural Products Against SARS-CoV-2: A Comprehensive Review.Clinical pharmacology : advances and applications · 2024Review
- Does haste make waste? Prevalence and types of errors reported after publication of studies of COVID-19 therapeutics.Systematic reviews · 2023Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
23 authors at 8 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThere are limited antiviral options for the treatment of patients with COVID-19. Ivermectin (IVM), a macrocyclic lactone with a wide anti-parasitary spectrum, has shown potent activity against SARS-CoV-2
methodsProof-of-concept, pilot, randomized, controlled, outcome-assessor blinded trial to evaluate antiviral activity of high-dose IVM in 45 COVID-19 hospitalized patients randomized in a 2:1 ratio to standard of care plus oral IVM at 0·6 mg/kg/day for 5 days versus standard of care in 4 hospitals in Argentina. Eligible patients were adults with RT-PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection within 5 days of symptoms onset. The primary endpoint was the difference in viral load in respiratory secretions between baseline and day-5, by quantitative RT-PCR. Concentrations of IVM in plasma were measured. Study registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04381884.
findings45 participants were recruited (30 to IVM and 15 controls) between May 18 and September 9, 2020. There was no difference in viral load reduction between groups but a significant difference was found in patients with higher median plasma IVM levels (72% IQR 59-77) versus untreated controls (42% IQR 31-73) (
interpretationA concentration dependent antiviral activity of oral high-dose IVM was identified at a dosing regimen that was well tolerated. Large trials with clinical endpoints are necessary to determine the clinical utility of IVM in COVID-19.
fundingThis work was supported by grant IP-COVID-19-625, Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación, Argentina and Laboratorio ELEA/Phoenix, Argentina.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.