Two more hospitals were granted compassionate special permits for the use of ivermectin on COVID-19 patients, the Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday.
FDA chief Eric Domingo said there are now five hospitals that have been issued a CSP for ivermectin.
While the CSP is not a marketing authorization – which means ivermectin cannot be sold commercially yet – two party-list lawmakers said they will begin distributing the anti-parasitic drug on Thursday.
Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of Sagip and Rep. Mike Defensor of Anakalusugan dubbed their initiative as “ivermectin pan-three” where they will provide each beneficiary with at least three ivermectin pills for free.
“This grave public health emergency caused by the pandemic is technically a war that needs to be decisively confronted. In war, people protect themselves with anything in order to survive,” the two lawmakers said in a joint statement late Tuesday.
The civil society group Concerned Doctors and Citizens PH (CDC-PH) will assist the lawmakers during the distribution at the Matandang Balara Hall Park.
“We need to cross the line and break the glass ceilings, if we must, one way or the other. We cannot, in good conscience, sit idly at the excuse of inflexible bureaucracy to deny our people, especially the underprivileged, their pharmaceutically-assisted moments as they struggle to breathe their last,” the lawmakers added.
Marcoleta and Defensor said they would continue their Ivermectin distribution drive to the poor sector, such as those in Barangays New Era, Commonwealth and Holy Spirit in Quezon City.
Domingo, for its part, said the FDA “accepts” that ivermectin is an investigational drug for COVID-19.
“[The] concept is you have a patient who is suffering and you don’t have anything else to give the patient, and there is a drug that is available somewhere else and you ask for permission to use this investigational drug on this patient,” Domingo said in an interview on ANC.
The FDA, the Department of Health, and the World Health Organization have all said that current evidence does not support the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered health and science agencies to hold clinical trials for the anti-parasitic drug.
The study is expected to start by the end of May, according to the Department of Science and Technology.
