By Modesto P. Sa-onoy
According to The Strait Times of Malaysia, (January 22), the Ministry of Health announced it would be conducting clinical trials for two medicines, Ivermectin and Favipiravi, to determine their efficacy in treating Covid-19.
Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has acknowledged that Ivermectin “is cheap, easily available and safe for use.” But in Malaysia, it is only licensed for use in animals.
We are in the same situation with our neighbour – Ivermectin is used for animals but while Malaysia is already moving toward adopting this drug which is cheap, easily available and safe for humans, the Philippines refuses even to take a look as our officials are obsessed with imported vaccines that are many times more expensive, still undergoing trials on millions as their manufacturers even admit it would take some time for the vaccine to be truly proven effective and safe.
Ivermectin is listed as an essential anti-parasitic drug by the World Health Organisation and it is also an approved drug in the US by the Federal Drug Administration.
Ivermectin is not only an anti-parasitic but also anti-viral drug (Covid-19 is a virus). It was originally developed by Japan in 1975. More than 3.7 billion doses have been distributed globally and used by many millions of people during the last 30 years or so, with no reported adverse side effects or deaths from people taking it.
That says a lot but our government officials are not listening, their ears glued only to the vaccine that even its owner reportedly did not want his family to be inoculated with it. Many religious leaders question the moral and ethical methods of their production but the Philippine hierarchy is preaching that their followers should obey the government diktat and be vaccinated. However, vaccination is not a matter of faith or morals thus beyond the competence of the bishops and priests. In fact, other bishops and priests in some parts of the world are opposed to vaccination or worse, mandatory vaccination.
Ivermectin has an impeccable safety record second to none, its advocates in the field of medicine swear by that statement. They have reasons for their confidence. Many recent studies from around the world, several of these were cited in this column, have also found Ivermectin to be very effective in both preventing and treating Covid-19.
The global situation has been changing fast in favour of using Ivermectin against Covid-19. The usual argument against Ivermectin (some big pharma firms involved in Covid-19 vaccine development may oppose its use as they understandably feel threatened by it) that “there is insufficient data to support its use” is no longer valid today. In fact, vaccine manufacturers and government regulatory agencies also admit that the vaccines have yet to fully complete their tests. Their approval are not yet permanent.
On 26 January 2021, Slovakia became the first European Union nation to approve the use of Ivermectin against Covid-19. Surely Slovakia has taken every step necessary to insure its safety and effectiveness.
Our readers will recall a report cited last December of the US Senate hearing on the claim of Dr. Pierre Kory on the effectiveness and safety of Ivermectin. Dr. Kory is the President of FLCCC (Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care) Alliance, along with Dr Andrew Hill, Researcher & Consultant to World Health Organisation. As a result of presentations of that hearing, the US National Institutes of Health on January 14, decided to upgrade Ivermectin from the status of “against” for the treatment of Covid-19 to “neither for or against”, thereby making it an option for the doctors concerned to use in preventing and treating Covid-19.
The upgrade by NIH might seem a small step forward for legitimacy for Ivermectin against Covid-19, but “it was a significant one as it has freed many doctors the option of using Ivermectin against Covid-19 without feeling the undue pressure or burden to do so.”
During the Senate hearing, US government health agencies were criticized “for giving due attention to expensive drugs and vaccines with huge commercial interest and funding, and not being bothered to pay any attention to safe, cheap and effective generic drugs as Ivermectin which would not generate large profits for the big pharma firms.”
Continued tomorrow.
