Human trials yet to be carrie­d out as people are warned agains­t self-medica­tionAs the medical experts across the world are racing to find a cure for coronavirus, Australian scientists have claimed that ‘Ivermectin’, an anti-parasitic drug, can kill the highly-contagious virus in human body within 48 hours. A collaborative study was led by Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) in Melbourne, Australia, with the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), EurekAlert reported. The scientists revealed that a single dose of the drug stopped coronavirus — medically named ‘SARS-CoV-2’ — from growing in cell culture within 48 hours. Ivermectin drug, which is widely available around the world, is highly effective against the COVID-19 virus when applied to an infected cell culture, according to the research published in Antiviral Research journal. Ivermectin is an FDA-approved anti-parasitic drug that has also proven to be effective in vitro against a broad range of viruses including HIV, Dengue, Influenza and Zika virus.

Source: The Express Tribune April 04, 2020 18:15 UTC