“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” is the succinct warning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted on its Twitter account Saturday about Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication for livestock that some people have used as a COVID treatment.
“The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses,” the agency said on its website.
The FDA’s warning came a day after Mississippi’s Department of Health said on its website that it “has received an increasing number of calls from individuals with potential ivermectin exposure taken to treat or prevent COVID-19 infection.”
“At least 70% of the recent calls have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers,” the health department said. “85% of the callers had mild symptoms, but one individual was instructed to seek further evaluation due to the amount of ivermectin reportedly ingested.”
“There’s a lot of misinformation around, and you may have heard that it’s okay to take large doses of ivermectin,” the FDA said on its site. “That is wrong.”
The United Kingdom, starting on Tuesday, will offer COVID-19 antibody tests to anyone older than 18, for up to 8,000 people.
According to reports from British media, health officials want to know more about the protection people have against the coronavirus and its variants.
Participants will be encouraged to take the first of two at-home tests as soon as they have tested positive for the virus. The second test would come 28 days later.
The results, the British Health Department said, would help it to better understand how much antibody protection patients develop to each variant, according to the BBC.
On Monday, the U.S. FDA reportedly intends to grant full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The New York Times reports the agency planned to complete the approval process by Friday but still faced “a substantial amount of paperwork and negotiation with the company.”
The FDA, which the Times reports had previously set an unofficial deadline for approval of around September 6, has declined to comment.
Final approval could bolster the Biden administration’s vaccination program by helping to convince unvaccinated citizens that Pfizer’s vaccine is safe and effective while also easing concerns among local officials over vaccine mandates.
Meanwhile, thousands of protesters took to the streets of France for a sixth straight Saturday against a new COVID-19 health pass that is needed to enter restaurants and other eating establishments, entertainment venues and long-distance travel.
The protesters see the pass as a restriction of their freedom in a country of more than 60 million people, more than 60% of whom have been fully vaccinated.
Russia reported 20,564 new COVID cases Sunday. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Sunday Russia has more than 6 million COVID infections.
The global count of COVID cases has reached 211.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins, while there have been 4.4 million deaths. The center says 4.9 billion vaccines have been administered.
Source: Voice of America