Ivermectin Tablet, 20 X 1 Tablets, Packaging Type: Strips, Rs 18 /strip (India 2020-08-21)

[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 1 points | Aug 21 2020 20:47:22

I'm posting this because someone on twitter said it would cost $24 to treat the entire US, which is obviously wrong. What would it cost? I arbitrarily selected this Indian retailer to get a price.

18 rupees = $0.24 US. The tablets are 12mg. Cost per tablet: 2 cents US.

The average North American weighs 81kg, which at 200mcg/kg = 16.2mg per person. Let's assume away the fractional tablet problem, like, people can break a table into 3 pieces as needed.

330 million Americans * 16.2mg / 12mg = 445.5 million 12mg tablets.

445.5 million * .24 / 20 = $5.4 million

At Indian retail prices, every American could get 1 dose of ivermectin the usual 200mcg/rage for $5.4 million.

Check my math! The little grey cells do not work as well as they once did.

Googling "What does ivermectin cost" returned "A single dose of ivermectin for a 70-kg (154-lb) adult costs about $38 (for three 6-mg pills)".

18mg for $38 = 47.3 cents/mg.

24 cents for 12mg = 2 cents/mg. US retail is 23.6 times as expensive as India retail.

It would cost $127 million to dose every American, at US retail prices.

What would the US price be, if the US engaged in a Mass Drug Administration of ivermectin to fight covid-19? Who knows? Depends on the lobbyists, I cynically suppose.

Edit:

India manufactures ivermectin (and many other drugs). It would possibly be a low-cost supplier to the US.

Merck manufactures ivermectin in the US (I'm 99% sure).

Merck made a billion doses in 2019, for WHO-sponsored Mass Drug Administrations. It probably wouldn't take too long for Merck to make the 500 million (or whatever) doses needed to treat everyone in the US. Presumably it is still manufacturing ivermectin for the MDA programs. It could just divert those doses, though that would be tragic for those fighting river blindness and filariasis. I don't know about filariasis, but people with the river blindness parasite need annual doses to kill the larvae, because ivermectin doesn't kill the adults and the adults can live in the body for 20 years, producing new larvae.

Edit: In this article, Professor Borody says An Ivermectin tablet can cost as little as $2", without specifying how many milligrams in the tablet. That's about $1.50 US. I don't know whether the professor has a basis for that figure, but it seems like a reasonable compromise between India's so-low figure and US retail.

Edit: $127 million would cost $6.6 billion for 330 Americans to take weekly doses, at the current retail price. I'll make up that it would be $2 billion/year after the federal government negotiated a lower price. For India's 1.35 billion people, at $0.02 per dose, it would cost $27 million to dose everyone once, $1.4 billion for weekly doses for a year. $0.12 is Indian retail. I'll make up that weekly doses for a year would cost India 5 billion.

[-] No-Sandwich-777 | 2 points | Aug 22 2020 06:26:33

Another note to mass ivermectin dosing. Chloroquines saw a malarial resistance with use. Might ivermectin, or artemisinin see a helminthic resistance with all these mass dosings?

Something to consider.

[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 1 points | Aug 22 2020 06:30:31

There are signs of that with ivermectin too. I didn't note the details because they're livestock IIRC. It could be happening with the MDAs in Africa, I can't remember/never knew.

In the context of covid-19, I'd call this a 5th or 10th order concern.

[-] No-Sandwich-777 | 2 points | Aug 22 2020 07:24:44

Resistance is not relegated to livestock. It is to the parasite.

[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 2 points | Aug 22 2020 07:28:05

You think I'm a lot dumber than I do.