Doctors at Duke University are leading a national study to test whether three drugs will effectively treat COVID-19, including one that has generated controversy for more than a year. Ivermectin’s potential to treat COVID-19 has been both celebrated and ridiculed. Some consider it a miracle drug that makes vaccination against the coronavirus unnecessary. But most in the medical establishment, including government regulators, say there’s not enough proof that it works and warn that self-medicating with ivermectin can make people sick in other ways. The Duke study, launched last summer, is the kind of comprehensive assessment of ivermectin’s ability to combat COVID-19 that has been missing up to now, said Dr. Adrian Hernandez, one of the study’s leaders.

Ivermectin is one of three drugs that Duke is testing under ACTIV-6, one of a series of studies of potential COVID-19 treatments and vaccines launched by the National Institutes of Health.

The two other drugs being tested in the ACTIV-6 study are fluvoxamine, used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and fluticasone furoate, an inhaler medicine prescribed for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.

Researchers are looking for evidence that the drugs either shorten the time people feel sick or prevent them from getting worse and needing to be hospitalized.

For information about the ACTIV-6 study, go to activ6study.org/.