@COVID19Up: Rarely is a drug discovered that works in so many different pathways as ivermectin. The medicine appears to work in at least three different ways to fight COVID-19 including as an anti-inflammatory, as a block for the spike protein, and as an antiviral.

The following is an excerpt from "Ivermectin, antiviral properties and COVID-19: a possible new mechanism of action," an article in Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology, the nearly 150-year old official journal of the German Society of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology.

"Ivermectin is a versatile drug with unique characteristics, which make it interesting also for basic and applied research (in particular for drug repurposing): it seems to reveal an antibacterial … antiviral, and anticancer activity …."

Three Mechanisms of Action

1. Anti-Inflammatory Ivermectin

The key word above is "versatile." Ivermectin works on different levels simultaneously. One surprising thing left out from the above list is "anti-inflammatory," which is important in the fight against COVID-19, as inflammation, such as that associated with cytokine storms, is a large part of the lethality of the disease.

According to an article published by the National Academy of Sciences, "the immune response during severe COVID-19 pneumonia may progress from inhibition of viral replication to inflammatory damage that continues despite viral control."