Ivermectin
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Ivermectin

Ivermectin is an anti-parasite medication and is effective against most common intestinal worms (except tapeworms), most mites, and some lice. While normally used to treat animals, it is also prescribed to humans to treat infections of Strongyloides stercoralis and onchocerciasis (river blindness). It is sold under brand names Stromectol® in the United States and Mectizan® in Canada. more...

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Ivermectin is chemically related to the insecticide avermectin, the active ingredient in some home-use ant baits. Both ivermectin and avermectin are derived from the bacterium Streptomyces avermitilis and kill by interfering with the target animal's nervous system.

In General Use Pesticide (GUP) formulations, these compounds are classified by the United States' Environmental Protection Agency as toxicity category IV, or very low. This means that although highly poisonous to insects, mammals should not generally be adversely affected by normal use of avermectin pesticide formulations. As an example, one such formulation was determined to have an oral LD50 (semi-lethal dose) of 650 mg/kg in rats (qualifies as toxicity category III—low toxicity) . Extrapolated to an 80 kg (180 lb) human, this semi-lethal dose is 52g (1.9 oz), or an amount of the pesticide equal to about four dominoes, which is considered by the EPA to be a low toxicity amount.

However, pure (as opposed to the diluted GUP formulations) avermectin formulations are both highly toxic to insects and mammals (as well as aquatic life, such as fish). One study reports an oral LD50 of 10 mg/kg in rats (qualifies as toxicity category I—high toxicity) .

Due to a mutation within the gene that codes for the MDR1 pump protein that normally disallows entry of ivermectin into the central nervous system, collies should not be treated with ivermectin or any other avermectin. (See P-glycoprotein)

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Drug curbs river blindness - ivermectin can reduce the spread of onchocerciasis
From Science News, 10/6/90

Drug curbs river blindness

Ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug used primarily in domestic animals, can significantly reduce the spread of a devastating human disease called onchocerciasis or river blindness, according to a study conducted on a West African rubber plantation.

The disease currently affects about 18 million people in tropical regions, where it spreads through the bite of blackflies that breed in river water. The flies transmit the immature, thread-like forms, or microfilariae, of the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus, which migrate through the skin and can eventually invade the eyes, causing blindness.

Ivermectin emerged as a promising weapon in the fight against river blindness several years ago (SN: 10/31/87, p.287), but the new study is the first to demonstrate its benefits in an entire community, the researchers say. For three years starting in 1987, a team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore administered a yearly ivermectin dose to each of the 14,000 residents of a Liberian rubber plantation except pregnant women, very small children and people with serious illnesses. At the end of the study period, skin samples showed that the average number of microfilariae had dropped by 84 percent, they report in the Oct. 5 SCIENCE.

Ivermectin doesn't affect adult O. volvulus, explains Beatriz Munoz of Hopkins, but it does kill microfilariae, easing symptoms of intense itching and presumably helping to preven eye damage. Moreoever, the drugs slows disease spread because blackflies pick up fewer microfilariae when they bite an infected person, says Alabama's Bruce M. Greene.

Because 90 percent of adult residents already carried the parasite when the study began, the researchers focused on 5-year-olds to gauge the rate of new infection. Among these children, the three-year treatment program reduced the incidence of new infection by 21 percent, they report.

COPYRIGHT 1990 Science Service, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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