Team Herald
PANJIM: Going ahead with its proposed “prophylaxis” treatment, the State government will start distributing the Ivermectin tablets to all above 18 years, within next 48 hours.
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday said that the health authorities are working with new protocol with a sole objective of reducing mortalities.
Rane held a meeting with the officials of Director of Health Services Dr Jose D’Sa, GMC Dean Dr Shivanand Bandekar and Director Women and Child Development Deepali Naik with regards to treatment using Ivermectin and distributing the same.
“We shall be distributing Ivermectin tablets in the State in the next 48 hours,” Rane said.
The minister said with expert advice of doctors, the government is working towards saving precious lives and will not rest until it brings down mortalities and cases under control.
The Ivermectin distribution will be done in association with the Department of Women and Child Development and anganwadi workers.
Rane said the anganwadi workers will make door-to-door visit and distribute the tablets.
While proposing the medicine, Rane had earlier said the expert panels from the UK, Italy, Spain and Japan, found a large, statistically significant reduction in mortality, time to recovery and viral clearance in COVID-19 patients treated with Ivermectin.
He had said this treatment does not prevent COVID-19 infection but helps in reducing the severity of the disease and at the same time one should not have a false sense of security and complacency but strictly take all the precautionary measures and follow laid standard operating procedures (SOPs).
However, the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan last week said the UN agency recommends against the use of the drug to treat COVID-19 patients except within clinical trials.