Viral infection treatment with oral zinc: a randomized controlled trial in COVID-19
From the very beginning, courageous physicians used zinc as the pandemic emerged
The big theme of my book Pandemic Blunder was that all the powerful forces running the COVID pandemic ignored use of simple home treatment protocols used effectively by a handful of brilliant doctors to successfully fight COVID. But the government and public health and medical establishment forces, especially the criminal Fauci, blocked their use. A key component of treatment protocols always was zinc. My wife and I have never had COVID infection; from the very beginning we took and still take zinc daily.
The good news has always been that there was solid medical proof for the continued use of zinc. Patients were fortunate to have doctors and hospitals throughout the pandemic who followed multidrug protocols that included zinc among several other nutraceuticals. The sad news is that most hospitalized patients in the world never received a single tablet of zinc. This was criminal. In many of the early protocols there was use of 50 mg elemental zinc (or 220 mg of zinc sulfate) since early 2020.
It is a shame and criminal that blue ribbon US academic medical centers failed to lead on randomized trials in the treatment of acute COVID-19. Even simple interventions were ignored by NIH and university medical centers, thus we waited for trials from elsewhere which have confirmed some of our early impressions of promising drugs in a number of treatment protocols, including the the McCullough Protocol, for the early ambulatory treatment of COVID-19. The successful goal was always to keep people out of hospitals. Early treatment was always a better, safe and more effective alternative to COVID vaccines.
Now comes the work Ben Abdallah et al from Tunisia who recently published the VIZIR trial (viral infection treatment with oral zinc: a randomized controlled trial in COVID-19) which randomized a spectrum of acute COVID-19 patients to zinc 25 mg twice daily versus placebo.
Be clear. Zinc has been known for decades to be an inhibitor of RNA-dependent polymerase. There was a 42% reduction in the primary composite of needing ICU admission or death. It is noteworthy, that the two most common companion drugs for zinc, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin where not mentioned anywhere in the paper. Additionally, while the authors indicate they diligently recorded information about COVID-19 vaccination, none of the data are given in the paper.
“Abstract
Background: Zinc supplementation has been considered a potential therapy for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We aimed to examine zinc efficacy in adult patients with COVID-19 infection.
Methods: We conducted a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial. Patients who were tested positive for COVID-19 without end-organ failure were randomized to oral zinc (n = 231) or matching placebo (n = 239) for 15 days. The primary combined outcome was death due to COVID-19 or intensive care unit (ICU) admission ≤30 days after randomization. Secondary outcomes included length of hospital stay for inpatients and duration of COVID-19 symptoms with COVID-19-related hospitalization for outpatients.
Results: 190 patients (40.4%) were ambulatory and 280 patients (59.6%) were hospitalized. Mortality at 30 days was 6.5% in the zinc group and 9.2% in the placebo group (OR: .68; 95% CI .34-1.35); ICU admission rates were, respectively, 5.2% and 11.3% (OR: .43; 95% CI .21-.87). Combined outcome was lower in the zinc group versus the placebo group (OR: .58; 95% CI .33-.99). Consistent results were observed in prespecified subgroups of patients aged <65 years, those with comorbidity, and those who needed oxygen therapy at baseline. Length of hospital stay was shorter in the zinc group versus the placebo group (difference: 3.5 days; 95% CI 2.76-4.23) in the inpatient group; duration of COVID-19 symptoms decreased with zinc treatment versus placebo in outpatients (difference: 1.9 days; 95% CI .62-2.6). No severe adverse events were observed during the study.
Conclusions: Our results showed that, in COVID-19 patients, oral zinc can decrease 30-day death, ICU admission rate and can shorten symptom duration.”
TAKE YOUR ZINC!
Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko
Board Certified Family Practitioner
501 Rt 208, Monroe, NY 10950
845-238-0000 March 23, 2020
To all medical professionals around the world:
My name is Dr. Zev Zelenko and I practice medicine in Monroe, NY. For the last 16 years, I have cared for approximately 75% of the adult population of Kiryas Joel, which is a very close knit community of approximately 35,000 people in which the infection spread rapidly and unchecked prior to the imposition of social distancing.
As of today my team has tested approximately 200 people from this community for Covid-19, and 65% of the results have been positive. If extrapolated to the entire community, that means more than 20,000 people are infected at the present time. Of this group, I estimate that there are 1500 patients who are in the high-risk category (i.e. >60, immunocompromised, comorbidities, etc).
Given the urgency of the situation, I developed the following treatment protocol in the pre-hospital setting and have seen only positive results:
1. Any patient with shortness of breath regardless of age is treated.
2. Any patient in the high-risk category even with just mild symptoms is treated.
3. Young, healthy and low risk patients even with symptoms are not treated (unless their circumstances change and they fall into category 1 or 2).
My out-patient treatment regimen is as follows:
1. Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice a day for 5 days
2. Azithromycin 500mg once a day for 5 days
3. Zinc sulfate 220mg once a day for 5 days
The rationale for my treatment plan is as follows. I combined the data available from China and South Korea with the recent study published from France (sites available on request). We know that hydroxychloroquine helps Zinc enter the cell. We know that Zinc slows viral replication within the cell. Regarding the use of azithromycin, I postulate it prevents secondary bacterial infections. These three drugs are well known and usually well tolerated, hence the risk to the patient is low.
Since last Thursday, my team has treated approximately 350 patients in Kiryas Joel and another 150 patients in other areas of New York with the above regimen.
Of this group and the information provided to me by affiliated medical teams, we have had ZERO deaths, ZERO hospitalizations, and ZERO intubations. In addition, I have not heard of any negative side effects other than approximately 10% of patients with temporary nausea and diarrhea.
In sum, my urgent recommendation is to initiate treatment in the outpatient setting as soon as possible in accordance with the above. Based on my direct experience, it prevents acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), prevents the need for hospitalization and saves lives.
With much respect,
Dr. Zev Zelenko
cc: President Donald J. Trump; Mr. Mark Meadows, Chief of Staff
Dr. Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko alerted me to zinc, I searched and found a very early covid 4 patient case study using a large number of zinc lozenges showing efficacy that lead me to the cold studies using lozenges - some showing efficacy, some not and analysis of why.
I took away that some zinc lozenges are made with ingredients that bind the zinc rendering it ineffective and the obvious need is to START VIRAL TREATMENT EARLY. My decision was to include the zinc sulfate tablets per Zelenko in my covid kit and take them for covid by "dissolving" them in water then mouth washing, gargling and swallowing that zinc sulfate water. Use regular dietary supplementation with 30 mg zinc from zinc gluconate tablets which I would also use as a lozenges, just put the pill in my mouth for a couple of minutes at a time to keep a bit of zinc in my mouth and throat if I got covid and and I would not worry about short term high zinc intake during the treatment for covid. and consider a bit of copper supplementation.
when I searched my email for Dr. Zelenko'letter I noticed this. which I had not remembered, "Hypothesis of zinc ascorbate as best zinc ionophore for raising antiviral resistance against Covid-19" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8250578/ The hypothesis here is that Zinc ascorbate acts as its own zinc ionophore where as other zinc compounds require a separate zinc ionophore for best antiviral action. So another "zinc" to consider. I searched, found this. I have no experience with
https://purebulk.com/products/zinc-ascorbate
Imagine if they had used Ivermectin or Quercetin + zinc.