Madagascar’s CVO, a cure for Covid-19?

Imported FB post from May 15,2020

Is COVID-19 ORGANICS drink popularized by Madagascar a “cure” for covid-19? Has it been ignored because it is made in Africa?

We will answer these questions after a brief dive into the fundamentals of the scientific drug discovery process.

Drug discovery is a long, exhaustive and costly process which ensures that drugs are critically tested for efficacy and safety before they can be declared fit for human consumption.

Efficacy tests monitor whether the drug can do what it is intended to do while safety tests ensure that the drug does not cause changes in the body’s natural processes which could lead to intolerable unwanted effects or even fatalities. For example, if grandma has a headache, you will want to give her a tablet that will stop the headache (efficacy) and not poison her liver as a side effect (Safety).

The entire process consists of about 16 critical steps which need to be completed sequentially. (see attached picture for details). The rate of spread of the Coronavirus has shocked the world and there is a race to find a cure or vaccine. The scientific community is willing to relax oversight so that any promising drug can be quickly processed and approved.

Madagascar produced the CVO drink and proceeded to advertising and marketing without demonstrating efficiency or safety and skipping at least 90% of the 16 steps in the process. Instead of doing the scrutiny and hard work required to prove the medicine, Madagascar is throwing a tantrum and using influencers to flood the headlines with the same old tired “…because it is African” accusations.

Some people will argue that some patients took the CVO drink and were treated of Covid-19. Remember that the Covid-19 is mostly self limiting meaning that most people eventually recover from it without taking any drug.

This makes the situation more complex because if you find a “cure” like Madagascar, you will need to prove that those who recovered after taking the med did recover because of the effects of the medication and not just because of the self limiting nature of the infection. This is where clinical trials come in (not done by Madagascar). In real life, this is a long and tedious process requiring double blinded randomized controlled trials.

Concerning safety, many will argue that the CVO is safe because patients have already taken it and not suffered any adverse effects. Well, there is currently no designated body to follow-up on those taking the drug to record any emerging symptoms. More so, there is still a risk of long term effects which has not been fully assessed, there is risk of interaction with other medicines, there is risk of other effects in other body systems which have not been assessed.

All these risks cannot be ignored when dealing with a medicine that can be taken by millions or even billions of people.

In conclusion, there is not enough evidence to show that the CVO is effective against Covid-19 or that is is safe enough for people to consume.