Harare- The College of Primary Care Physicians of Zimbabwe (CPCPZ), which represents general practitioners, has written to the Ministry of Health requesting permission to prescribe the drug Ivermectin to Covid-19 patients.
Ivermectin is a veterinary drug used largely for nematode control in cattle, horses, pigs, and dogs and became the standard for control of the ectoparasitic disease, scabies.
In a letter to the Health Permanent Secretary Dr. Jasper Chimedza, the doctors say patients on these medications are recovering.
“Over the past 10 months we have found ourselves assessing and treating the vast majority of patients who have been infected with the SARS CoV2 virus. This has included the approximately 85% who have had mild to moderate disease but also due to various factors, we also have had to treat most of the ill patients who have not been able to access ICU or even HDU in hospitals.
“We have had to manage these patients in our rooms, high density clinics, in their homes, and sometimes even in their cars in car parks outside full hospitals. We have also had to deal with their contacts and family members and tried to educate and find ways to prevent the virus from spreading further in our community.” wrote the Doctors.
CPCPZ says they have adopted the use of the drug since August last year and has been a game changer in the management of COVID-19 patients.
“Since August 2020 we have adopted the use of both Ivermectin and nanosilver solution and have found this combination to be a game changer in terms of the management of our patients. (A few South African colleagues who were desperate also used the two in combination and can relate anecdotes of clearing an old age home hospital full of patients in a week. They too were struck by the effectiveness and have actually put this protocol called the SID protocol on the Ivermectin Africa website.)
“For the past 5 months we have used Ivermectin and nanosilver, either separately or together alongside the standard of care for our COVID patients. After the first wave when numbers were low it was less obvious just how successful this regimen can be but when the second wave hit in mid-December we found that using this protocol was extremely effective.
“We use far less oxygen, far fewer patients progress and in fact some practitioners estimate that they have less than 1, 5% mortality using this combination. We believe that the Zimbabwean case fatality rate would be significantly higher over the last month if we had not been able to use it. We also subjectively believe that it is as useful in prophylaxis as our South American counterparts have found,” said CPCPZ
