Recently, a middle-aged woman came to see me in my ophthalmology clinic because her eyes felt gritty and uncomfortable. She had seen another doctor a month earlier who diagnosed her with eyelid inflammation and wrote her a prescription.
As I examined her eyes, she mentioned in passing the prescription medication she’d been using – ivermectin. This was the first I’d heard of this drug being used for itchy, uncomfortable eyes. I knew researchers had studied and rejected ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19, and that the medication is to treat onchocerciasis, a condition more commonly known as river blindness that is mostly seen in rural sub-Saharan Africa.
