There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. This paper looks in depth at the events surrounding ivermectin’s passage from being a huge success in Animal Health into its widespread use in humans, a development which has led many to describe it as a “wonder” drug.

It has also been used to successfully overcome several other human diseases and new uses for it are continually being found. It is now being used free-of-charge as the sole tool in campaigns to eliminate both diseases globally. It was quickly discovered to be ideal in combating two of the world’s most devastating and disfiguring diseases which have plagued the world’s poor throughout the tropics for centuries. Originally introduced as a veterinary drug, it kills a wide range of internal and external parasites in commercial livestock and companion animals.

Discovered in the late-1970s, the pioneering drug ivermectin, a dihydro derivative of avermectin-originating solely from a single microorganism isolated at the Kitasato Intitute, Tokyo, Japan from Japanese soil-has had an immeasurably beneficial impact in improving the lives and welfare of billions of people throughout the world.

Words of wonder level 68 help