Philippine Medical Association: Prescribe ivermectin vs COVID-19 only at hospitals with permits
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Medical Association has told doctors not to prescribe the ivermectin as a supposed COVID-19 treatment outside of hospitals given compassionate use permits by the Food and Drug Administration.
PMA, the country's primary medical association, reiterated warnings by health officials that current evidence on using the anti-parasitic drug to treat COVID-19 remains inconclusive.
This came after Rep. Mike Defensor (Anakalusugan party-list) and Rep. Rodante Marcoleta (Sagip party-list) distributied ivermectin to Quezon City residents.
"[It] may not be prescribed by any physician outside the designated authorized hospitals," PMA said on Saturday. "Its prescription as a prophylactic medicine against COVID-19 is strongly not advised."
FDA has granted compassionate use permit to five hospitals, but it has not disclosed the names of the facilities to date. The local regulator has earned criticism on the move too, after also telling the public that using the drug can be highly toxic.
Photos of prescriptions from what was initially dubbed the "Ivermectin Pan-three" — a play on community pantreis — showed the pieces of paper did not include information on the doctors who prescribed them. Recipients were also made to sign a waiver before receiving the antiparasitic drugs.
The doctors' group said its infectious medicine specialists have reviewed case studies on the drug as a potential treatment. They said it showed "low confidence certainty due to high risk of bias and low overall quality of evidence."
"PMA reiterates its warning that FDA already cautioned that manufacturer and dispensing of unregistered drugs would be prosecuted," it said. "The unlawful sale of the drug product brought abroad but not registered with the FDA is also illegal."
In an April 30 statement, the Department of Health and the FDA said it will "officially endorse" reports of alleged invalid prescriptions from Defensor and Marcoleta's distribution to the Professional Regulation Commission.
Despite previous warnings, however, it remains to be seen if efforts to give out Ivermectin would be penalized. The Department of Justice has said that this was "on its face" a violation of the law, but deferred on the question if this can lead to warrantless arrests.
"Ivermectin must be prescribed and used within the same hospital and the prescribing doctor must inform the patient of this compassionate use category with unproven end result," the PMA added, whose members as doctors took the Hippocratic oath to "first, do no harm." — Christian Deiparine
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