No shortcuts
When researchers showed that ivermectin could kill SARSCoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) in the laboratory, the news – well, it went viral. A cheap, widely available anti-parasitic that could be repurposed to control the pandemic sounded exactly what we were waiting for. But then, very quickly overseas, it led to a spike in poisoning as people self-dosed with a drug commonly used to deworm cows and horses, and suffered violent diarrhoea and vomiting as a result.
Repurposing drugs is not the quick fix it may
