Drug can block malaria transmission, studies show

“There is a lot of interest in launching MDA campaigns to fight drug-resistant malaria in Southeast Asia, but it can be hard to convince someone to take malaria medications if they don’t have an active malaria infection,” Dr Kobylinski said.

“But if you put ivermectin into the mix, that could improve participation because many people recognize the benefits of taking ivermectin for more common problems, like scabies.”

About ivermectin

Over the last 3 decades, more than 1 billion doses of ivermectin have been distributed in Africa and Latin America in MDA campaigns that have reduced the burden of lymphatic filariasis, which causes elephantiasis, and onchocerciasis, the disease that causes river blindness.

Ivermectin can also kill several types of debilitating intestinal worms known as soil-transmitted helminths.

Earlier this month, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to a pair of researchers who isolated the precursor of ivermectin, avermectin, from an organism discovered in a single soil sample collected in Japan in the 1970s.