Surgisphere Sows Confusion About Another Unproven COVID-19 Drug

The company behind a now-discredited study on hydroxychloroquine also posted a report that has been cited by Latin American governments recommending ivermectin as a possible coronavirus treatment. Clinicians there say the effects have been extremely damaging.

Written byCatherine Offord

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ABOVE: Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, where some people desperate to protect themselves against COVID-19 have had injections of veterinary formulations of ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug that is not known to be effective against the novel coronavirus
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Update (October 13): Peru’s Ministry of Health yesterday retracted its recommendation of ivermectin and other drugs in treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The announcement, published today in El Peruano, nullifies an entire section of the ministry’s guidelines that had originally included recommendations to use hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin. Ivermectin was added to those guidelines by ministerial resolution on May 8.

Update (June 22): The Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, has issued a statement warning against the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. The statement notes that the antiparasitic drug is being investigated in clinical trials, but currently, “ivermectin is incorrectly being used for ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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