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. 2022 Apr 2;15(4):445.
doi: 10.3390/ph15040445.

Antiviral Activity of Repurposing Ivermectin against a Panel of 30 Clinical SARS-CoV-2 Strains Belonging to 14 Variants

Océane Delandre  1   2   3 , Mathieu Gendrot  1   2   3 , Priscilla Jardot  3   4 , Marion Le Bideau  3   4 , Manon Boxberger  3   4 , Céline Boschi  3   4 , Isabelle Fonta  1   2   3   5 , Joel Mosnier  1   2   3   5 , Sébastien Hutter  2   3 , Anthony Levasseur  3   4 , Bernard La Scola  3   4 , Bruno Pradines  1   2   3   5
Affiliations

Antiviral Activity of Repurposing Ivermectin against a Panel of 30 Clinical SARS-CoV-2 Strains Belonging to 14 Variants

Océane Delandre et al. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). .

Abstract

Over the past two years, several variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged and spread all over the world. However, infectivity, clinical severity, re-infection, virulence, transmissibility, vaccine responses and escape, and epidemiological aspects have differed between SARS-CoV-2 variants. Currently, very few treatments are recommended against SARS-CoV-2. Identification of effective drugs among repurposing FDA-approved drugs is a rapid, efficient and low-cost strategy against SARS-CoV-2. One of those drugs is ivermectin. Ivermectin is an antihelminthic agent that previously showed in vitro effects against a SARS-CoV-2 isolate (Australia/VI01/2020 isolate) with an IC50 of around 2 µM. We evaluated the in vitro activity of ivermectin on Vero E6 cells infected with 30 clinically isolated SARS-CoV-2 strains belonging to 14 different variants, and particularly 17 strains belonging to six variants of concern (VOC) (variants related to Wuhan, alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron). The in vitro activity of ivermectin was compared to those of chloroquine and remdesivir. Unlike chloroquine (EC50 from 4.3 ± 2.5 to 29.3 ± 5.2 µM) or remdesivir (EC50 from 0.4 ± 0.3 to 25.2 ± 9.4 µM), ivermectin showed a relatively homogeneous in vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 regardless of the strains or variants (EC50 from 5.1 ± 0.5 to 6.7 ± 0.4 µM), except for one omicron strain (EC50 = 1.3 ± 0.5 µM). Ivermectin (No. EC50 = 219, mean EC50 = 5.7 ± 1.0 µM) was, overall, more potent in vitro than chloroquine (No. EC50 = 214, mean EC50 = 16.1 ± 9.0 µM) (p = 1.3 × 10-34) and remdesivir (No. EC50 = 201, mean EC50 = 11.9 ± 10.0 µM) (p = 1.6 × 10-13). These results should be interpreted with caution regarding the potential use of ivermectin in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients: it is difficult to translate in vitro study results into actual clinical treatment in patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; chloroquine; in vitro; ivermectin; omicron; remdesivir; repurposing drug.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The findings and conclusion of this report are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Ministère des Armées and Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
EC50 means of ivermectin according to the 14 clinically isolated variants of SARS-CoV-2 (error bar represents the standard deviation of 5 to 11 independent experiments).
Figure 2
Figure 2
EC50 means of chloroquine according to the 14 clinically isolated variants of SARS-CoV-2 (error bar represents the standard deviation of 5 to 11 independent experiments).
Figure 3
Figure 3
EC50 means of remdesivir according to the 14 clinically isolated variants of SARS-CoV-2 (error bar represents the standard deviation of 5 to 11 independent experiments).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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