Jonathan Lotz has been released from the hospital following a week of fighting the COVID disease.
His mother, Anne Graham Lotz, revealed the news on social media, Faithwire reported.
"PRAISE GOD!! Jonathan is home!! Eight days ago he was admitted to ICU with COVID-SARS-the Delta Variant-and pneumonia. Today he was discharged from the hospital! God has heard and answered your prayers for my son!" Anne wrote.
She expressed her gratitude to everyone who prayed by citing Philippians 1:3-6.
Anne concluded by continuing to request prayers for her son.
"Please, please continue to pray for his swift recovery and restoration to full health with no setbacks or complications. And that I can take good care of him. Blessing upon blessing to each of you who have helped carry him in prayer," she said.
The emergence of the virus' delta variant was blamed for the increase of COVID infection worldwide, which according to the World Health Organization, has risen by at least 12% last week.
COVID treatments are often expensive. But according to The Jerusalem Post, Israel's Sheba Medical Center (SMC) has discovered that Ivermectin, a drug for parasites, could cure the infection. It is also very cheap which only costs $0.60 in Bangladesh.
The research was conducted by Prof. Eli Schwartz, SMC's founder of the Center for Travel Medicine, on May 15, 2020 until January this year. The drug was experimented on COVID patients with mild and moderate cases.
The study showed that 72% of the volunteers tested negative for the virus only after six days, while those who were given the placebo was only 50%. Further, only 13% of these Ivermectin patients remained infectious after the same period, compared to 50% of the group who were on placebo treatment.
"Our study shows first and foremost that Ivermectin has antiviral activity. It also shows that there is almost a 100% chance that a person will be noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to shortening isolation time for these people. This could have a huge economic and social impact," Schwartz said.
Though the founder's research did not prove that the drug could prevent the illness or hospitalization, he shared that in accordance with the study published by the American Journal of Therapeutics (AJT), the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance's review concluded that Ivermectin "demonstrates a strong signal of therapeutic efficacy" against the disease.
Schwartz added that another review also found out that the drug was able to reduce deaths by 75%.
But despite this, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as the World Health Organization, have not endorsed the usage of Ivermectin. The FDA warned against its use, saying that it is not antiviral and taking huge doses is "dangerous and can cause serious harm."
However, Schwartz disclosed that the other researchers from all over the world have also seen positive results of using the drug but none wanted to publish their findings due to "a lot of opposition." He said that he himself tried to publish his research but was turned down by three journals.
The founder uncovered that the reason why pharmaceutical companies do not want the findings to be released, even though the world is suffering from the illness, is because the "drug will not bring any big economic profits."
Even its maker, Merck Co., is opposed to the usage of the drug as a COVID treatment.
Schwartz warned that depriving the people of the truth about Ivermectin could lengthen the world's battle with the virus.
"Developing new medications can take years; therefore, identifying existing drugs that can be re-purposed against COVID-19 [and] that already have an established safety profile through decades of use could play a critical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic," the AJT researchers also declared.
