BUFFALO, N.Y. — A doctor in Buffalo says a lot of people are being admitted to the hospital after taking ivermectin as a method of prevention against COVID-19.

"Like when everyone was stock piling toilet paper, now everyone is stock piling this medication," Dr. Jonathan Claus, an ECMC infectious disease attending physician, said.

Ivermectin is actually an antiparasitic drug that can be prescribed to humans. It can also be found in stores geared toward animal care. The difference between the drug for humans and animals is the dosing and the purity standards.

"They are going to those stores and getting the horse or cow equivalent of it and taking it,” Dr. Claus said. “And it's just kind of alarming because a lot of people are getting hospitalized, etc. from side effects of taking the medication.”

Dr. Claus pointed to research showing that ivermectin doesn't actually work against COVID-19.

"They have studies where you take it to prevent you from getting sick. And then if someone around you is sick and you have it, you want to prevent getting sick. So [it's] a post-exposure type of thing. And when you're hospitalized, does it help you get better quicker? And ivermectin has been proven to do none of those things," Dr. Claus said. 

Dr. Claus says ivermectin for COVID-19 is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, unlike the Pfizer vaccine, or Moderna and Johnson & Johnson with emergency use authorization.

"The scary stories people hear about the vaccine are few and far between,” Dr. Claus said. “If you give anything to anybody several billion times you're going to have a couple of reactions.”

Doctors also emphasize the need for booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccines. They hope the boosters will be approved for the general public by September 20.