Your article seems to actually prove what you claim it disproves. The chemicals in the two drugs are very similar, perhaps identical, so they are making a big deal about the dosage. Many times I’ve heard proponents of Ivermectin say that the tests which claim Ivermectin’s inefficacy use far too low of a dose.
Ritonavir “boosting” has been used in HIV medicine since 1996.
A side-effect of ritonavir is that it blocks hepatic metabolism of certain drugs - in this case, of the primary antiviral.
A dose sufficient to stop the virus without the ritonavir boost is too large to tolerate when taken by mouth.
You make a very important point about dosage and demonstrated efficacy. The strong dose-response relationship of Ivermectin (IVM) in reducing the initial viral load is a critical factor that the Doctors take into account who use it successfully in early treatment of COVID-19 for their patients.
The "standard" IVM dosage at 0.2 mg per kg of body weight (that was compared to the active ingredient of Paxlovid) is doubled or tripled to 0.4-0.6 mg/kg for early treatment of COVID-19 and taken daily for 5 days or until recovered. The good news is the astonishing safety record demonstrated by Ivermectin does not appear to diminish at the higher doses in studies conducted. Even at 1.2 and 2 mg/kg (6x and 10x the standard dose) there was no difference in side effects.
This is a good fact sheet about the safety of high dose Ivermectin with many references.
Regarding cost, at double or triple dosage, the cost of Ivermectin will still be a very small fraction of the expected cost of Paxlovid in the USA market.
Steve_Seattle wrote: “Your article seems to actually prove what you claim it disproves. The chemicals in the two drugs are very similar, perhaps identical, so they are making a big deal about the dosage. Many times I’ve heard proponents of Ivermectin say that the tests which claim Ivermectin’s inefficacy use far too low of a dose.”
The article clearly demonstrates that the chemicals aren’t ‘very’ similar, and certainly not identical. The proponents of ivermectin like to claim it safe and it is, but not in the high dosages required to be effective against covid.