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Westmead Hospital in Sydney鈥檚 west says it has treated a patient after taking the drug ivermectin, an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment for COVID-19.

The person went to hospital seeking treatment for diarrhoea and vomiting side-effects, after taking the drug, which is usually used to treat parasites. The person had ordered this and other unproven COVID 鈥渃ures鈥� online.

Ever since researchers showed ivermectin could kill SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in the laboratory, there has been interest in whether the drug would also work to kill the virus .

So far, there is it works to treat or prevent COVID-19. And there is widespread consensus people should not take ivermectin at home for COVID-19.

Organisations that recommend against it include: the , Australia鈥檚 and , the United State鈥檚 , and the .

Despite this, have reported increased demand for ivermectin, with people seeking the drug as a possible COVID treatment.

In Australia, ivermectin is . It鈥檚 also widely used in veterinary medicine to treat and prevent parasite infections.

However, as a prescription-only human medicine (known as ), you can only access ivermectin legally in Australia after approval from a doctor.

This is because, like all medicines, ivermectin is not 100% safe. It does have possible harmful side-effects and a doctor鈥檚 judgement is necessary to decide if ivermectin is safe and appropriate for each patient.

So ivermectin is currently only recommended to treat and prevent COVID-19 when used , where patients can be more safely selected and carefully monitored.

As well as more patients presenting to pharmacies with scripts, the Therapeutic Goods Administration about the danger of importing ivermectin products of unknown quality, bought over the internet.

This is risky because products may not contain the stated drug, may contain dangerous contaminants or much more of the drug than thought, which may result in an overdose.

Of most concern are reports from and of people buying and taking ivermectin products intended for animal use. People may be resorting to these types of products where they have been unable to access a script for human formulations of ivermectin.

We know very little about what the drug does to humans, and the little we do know mostly comes from .

When taken at the recommended dose, the drug is generally well tolerated. But ivermectin is known to cause mild side-effects such as diarrhoea, nausea, dizziness and sleepiness. Less common, but serious, side-effects include severe skin rashes and effects on the nervous system (causing tremor, confusion and drowsiness).

In higher doses, and overdose cases, these side-effects can be . These include low blood pressure, problems with balance, seizures, liver injury, and it can even .

The public is understandably interested in medicines to treat and prevent COVID-19. However, .

remains the best way to reduce the risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19. Australia鈥檚 provides the most up-to-date information about COVID-19 treatments and is a reliable source of information as new knowledge emerges.

This article was first published on and is written by Associate Nial Wheate, Professor Andrew McLachlan and Slade Matthews from the University of Sydney.