AS PANDEMIC RAVAGES, "REMEDIOS" FOR COVID-19 APPEAR

By Juan Montoya

They range from the ridiculous (and dangerous) to supposedly undiscovered cures.

From rural home-concocted medicinal mixes to drugs for river blindness and intestinal parasites and treatments for head-lice, people along both sides of the river are trying some surprising remedies in the belief that they might thwart the advance of a COVID-19 infection.

There are no hospitals or doctors in the ranchos and ejidos of northern Tamaulipas and people do with what they can or what their compadres recommend. Some of these "cures" have worked their way across the river where residents cross to Matamoros to flock to the farmacias to buy them.

Some could help, as some assert, but others might hurt people or prove useless.

Trump champions a hydroxychloroquine-antibiotic mix and claims he is taking it to prevent getting the virus despite his national experts' opinions that it has been clinically proven it does no such thing.

So if Trump pushes his "remedy," why shouldn't people along the border who have  along history of concocting "remedios" to treat everything from high blood pressure to emotional trauma (curar del susto)?

Ever since COVID-19 struck the area, people have vouched for simple remedies like cutting a lemon in four sections, throwing in three aspirins, bringing it to a boil and drinking it warm three times a day. If it's a bit sour, add honey, the remedy goes. Another similar remedy has the user adding zinc, easily bought as vitamins off the shelf.

Like Trump, they can't be told the stuff doesn't work. People who have asthma often buy an inexpensive anti-inflammatory drug injection in the farmacias in Matamoros, Nuevo Progreso and Reynosa called dexametasona which has been found to help people with COVID-19 breathe easier when their lungs are attacked by the virus.

By the time that happens it might be a bit late, but some people who have been infected and have survived swear by it, of course.

It goes without saying that these are "cures" that have been embraced by people who have no access to or cannot afford expert medical care and are searching for something, anything, they think will ward off the virus. We by no means recommend you take any of these and ask that you consult a medical professional and don't self-prescribe.

A friend of ours was in Pharr the other day and was talking to some Mexican truck drivers who mentioned one of the most unusual "cures" for COVID-19, a pill taken for head lice.

"Si, guey, pa los piojos," he was told. "Te tomas unas pildoras y mata el virus."

We found out that the medicine he was talking about was a Merck-marketed drug known as Stromectal and other brands on the U.S. side, a pill containing ivermectin, a drug used to prevent heart worms in dogs that also has been found to kill head lice that are resistant to first-line treatment better than malathion-based lotion.

Ivermectin is also used in the treatment of river blindness caused by a parasitic worm carried by flies that live along rivers in Central Africa. It has been prescribed to treat intestinal parasites in both animals and humans. In the words of the trucker, "cura piojos y lumbrices."

But there is something interesting that has led some researchers that the human version be repurposed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because some researchers found that ivermectin left with a virus similar to COVID-19 inhibited its regeneration.

A Science Direct abstract in an article on the drug from June 2020 states: "Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro. A single treatment was able to effect a 5,000-fold reduction in virus at 48 hours in a cell culture. Ivermectin is FDA-approved for parasitic infections, and therefore has a potential for repurposing."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011#:~:text=Ivermectin%20is%20an%20inhibitor%20of,has%20a%20potential%20for%20repurposing.

The truck driver said that the anti-lice pills were gaining in  popularity and that as word of its supposed effectiveness against COVID-19 spread, a black market has quickly developed where a single pill that sold for $100 pesos (about $5 US) is now selling for $500 pesos (about $25 U.S.).

If a prescription calls for 20 pills and costs about $20 in U.S. pharmacies, a black marketer can make a neat $500. Of course, you's have to get a prescription to get it, but that has never been a problem locally or in Matamoros. Buyer beware. Self prescription is dangerous and not recommended.

In fact, the use of ivermectin-based self-medication has reached "industrial quantities." according to a Monterrey doctor who published this ditty purporting to be the drug talking to its users.

"Hello, I'm ivermetcin, and I have become very famous and solicited  nowadays. Veterinarians

use me for ticks and those things for animals, but I also work on humans,,,I have become very famous because of COVID-19...In humans I am used for lice and bugs, and I am very strong, maybe that's why I am used to fight the evil (virus), but I must warn you that I AM NO GOOD AS A PREVENTIVE MEDICINE and I am only good after you feel the symptoms and I will not only kill your parasites but  (if you take me before you feel the symptoms) I could damage your stomach and liver...and please, before you use me, visit a doctor and please, don't resell me because many people really do need me. SHARE ME!"

There are, of course, more esoteric "cocktails" taken by some well-to-do patients to fight COVID-19 including the one championed by Trump of  hydroxychloroquine plus a macrolide antibiotic like azithromycin. But research has found it linked to a 45 percent increased risk of death and more than quadrupled the risk of a serious heart arrhythmia. Even then, if people are desperate, they take their chances.

This hasn't stopped others from combining hydroxychloroquine with various other drugs to make their own "cocktail" but a word of warning: If you advocate this and say it will cure you of COVID-19 you will probably be sued by the drug company or the AMA or sanctioned by the FDA. At the very least, you may be banned from Facebook for reposting someone advocating the idea, as some of our local denizens found out recently.

There is also research into antibodies treatments that can be mass produced in the lab and which are already being tested in patients. However, no one can claim they have either a vaccine, or any other drug or treatment that can prevent or cure COVID-19 or it would have been mass produced and distributed as quickly as humanly possible.

We can't stop desperate people on either side of the Rio Grande from trying any "remedio" they believe will stop the virus. Survival is a powerful incentive and driving force as is the user's faith in that the remedio will work.The best way to prevent infection is to follow the advice of the CDC and wear a face mask, wash your hands frequently with soap and practice social distancing, and avoid crowds  until there is some sense of safety from the disease.

So far there is no magic pill or shot that will prevent or cure the virus. And blind faith in either the curandero or the politician could turn out to be a bitter pill that puts your money in the purveyor's pocket and your health in his hands instead of a cure for the user.