Universidad del Valle, Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Prevención de la Violencia y Promoción de la Convivencia Social, CISALVA, Cali, Colombia.
Universidad del Valle, Facultad de Salud, Escuela de Medicina, Departamento de Patología, Cali, Colombia.
Colomb Med (Cali). 2020 Dec 30;51(4):e2014613. doi: 10.25100/cm.v51i4.4613.
The low frequency of cases and deaths from the SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 virus in some countries of Africa has called our attention about the unusual behavior of this disease. The ivermectin is considered a drug of choice for various parasitic and viral diseases and shown to have in vitro effects against SARS-CoV-2.
Our study aimed to describe SARS-CoV2 infection and death rates in African countries that participated in an intensive Ivermectin mass campaign carried out to control onchocerciasis and compare them with those of countries that did not participate.
Data from 19 countries that participated in the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), from 1995 until 2015, were compared with thirty-five (Non-APOC), countries that were not included. Information was obtained from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ database. Generalized Poisson regression models were used to obtain estimates of the effect of APOC status on cumulative SARS-CoV-2 infection and mortality rates.
After controlling for different factors, including the Human Development Index (HDI), APOC countries (vs. non-APOC), show 28% lower mortality (0.72; 95% CI: 0.67-0.78) and 8% lower rate of infection (0.92; 95% CI: 0.91-0.93) due to COVID-19.
The incidence in mortality rates and number of cases is significantly lower among the APOC countries compared to non-APOC countries. That a mass public health preventive campaign against COVID-19 may have taken place, inadvertently, in some African countries with massive community ivermectin use is an attractive hypothesis. Additional studies are needed to confirm it.
在一些非洲国家，SARS-CoV-2 新冠病毒的病例和死亡频率较低，这引起了我们对这种疾病异常行为的关注。伊维菌素被认为是治疗各种寄生虫和病毒疾病的首选药物，并已显示出对 SARS-CoV-2 的体外作用。
我们的研究旨在描述参加世界卫生组织（WHO）赞助的非洲盘尾丝虫病控制项目（APOC）的非洲国家的 SARS-CoV2 感染和死亡率，并将其与未参加的国家进行比较。
我们比较了 1995 年至 2015 年期间参加世界卫生组织（WHO）赞助的非洲盘尾丝虫病控制项目（APOC）的 19 个国家的数据，与未参加的 35 个国家（非 APOC）进行比较。信息来自 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 数据库。使用广义泊松回归模型获得 APOC 状态对累积 SARS-CoV-2 感染和死亡率的影响估计。
在控制了不同因素，包括人类发展指数（HDI）后，APOC 国家（与非 APOC 国家相比）的死亡率降低了 28%（0.72；95%CI：0.67-0.78），COVID-19 感染率降低了 8%（0.92；95%CI：0.91-0.93）。
与非 APOC 国家相比，APOC 国家的死亡率和病例数明显较低。在一些大规模使用社区伊维菌素的非洲国家，无意中可能进行了大规模的公共卫生预防 COVID-19 运动，这是一个有吸引力的假设。需要进一步的研究来证实这一点。
