The systematic shortcomings of the national strategy for the pandemic have pushed the business community to experimental interventions that lack oversight and safety mechanisms. This move may be a desperate response to fear, confusion, and governmental failures in the fight against COVID-19.
The business leaders using ivermectin have championed the drug based on their personal experience or their family or friends’ experiences. The scientific community takes note of these as anecdotal reports needing further examples, based on the hierarchy of evidence. Anecdotal evidence or case studies are the second to the lowest in value after laboratory or animal studies.
At present, medical societies such as the Philippine Society of Public Health Physicians, the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and the Philippine Medical Association have not recommended the use of ivermectin for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. This is based on their assessment that there is still low quality of evidence. These guidelines can change as the evidence changes and more clinical trials are done and evaluated.
We are in a situation where we cannot produce quality evidence because we lack the ecosystem for innovation and evaluation. With better research capacity and a proactive engagement with the private sector, the speed of generating evidence and products could be at par with our neighbors. The whole of government could have made research and development more of a priority the past years. However, through the years we have seen politicians belittling our scientists doing research.