Found effective drug combination to cure COVID-19 patients: Bangladeshi doctors

DHAKA, May 18: A Bangladeshi medical team led by a senior doctor has claimed that their research on the combination of two widely used drugs has yielded astounding results in curing the patients with acute symptoms of the coronavirus that has created havoc worldwide and claimed the lives of over 312,000 people globally.

The claim by the Bangladeshi medical team, which includes prominent physicians from the country, comes amidst the desperate global attempts for a remedy to the deadly coronavirus.

We have got astounding results. Out of 60 COVID-19 patients, all recovered as the combination of the two drugs were applied, said Professor Dr Md Tarek Alam, the head of medicine department at private Bangladesh Medical College Hospital (BMCH).

Alam, a reputed clinician in Bangladesh, said a frequently used antiprotozoal medicine called Ivermectin in a single dose with Doxycycline, an antibiotic, yielded virtually the near-miraculous result in curing the patients with COVID-19.

My team was prescribing the two medicines only for coronavirus patients, most of them initially reporting with respiratory problems with related complaints, later to be tested COVID-19 positive, he said.

Bangladesh has so far reported 20,995 coronavirus cases. A total of 314 people have lost their lives in the country due to the disease.

Claiming that the efficacy of the drug developed by them was such that patients recovered from the virus within 4 days, he said, adding that there were no side effects of it.

We first ask them to be tested for COVID-19 and when found coronavirus positive we apply the drugs . . . they are recovering within four days".

"The repeated or second tests, in line with the procedure, reconfirmed them COVID-19 negative in all the cases under the research which found the combination to have no side effects on patients either, he said.

We are hundred per cent hopeful about the effectiveness of the combination, he said, adding they by now contacted the concerned government regulators and preparing to exhaust international procedures for acknowledgement of the drugs for the COVID-19 treatment.

Alam said his team was preparing a paper on the development of the drug for an international journal, as required for scientific review and acknowledgement.

Alam's associate Dr Rabiul Morshed said despite being a non-COVID-19 facility a huge number of patients directly and indirectly end up in BMCH, the country's premier private general hospital.

But all of them have shown remarkable recovery being (COVID-19) negative in four days and 50 per cent reduction of symptoms in 3 days, he said.

The coronavirus, which broke out initially in China, has claimed the lives of 312,115 people while infected over 4,650,793, according to Johns Hopkins University. - PTI