AUSTRALIAN gastroenterologist, Thomas Borody, has claimed that Zimbabwe can achieve a COVID19-free status if correct interventions to combat the respiratory virus are followed.

Speaking at a virtual meeting on how to get Zimbabwe out of a lockdown, and how the country could avoid the third wave, the academic said the country had great advantages, which include Vice-President and Health minister Constantino Chiwenga, and his medical team who managed to save many lives and to execute timeous interventions to combat the disease.

Borody has asserted that Invermectin, Zinc and Doxycycline can be combined into a drug that has the potential to be a cure for COVID-19.

“The Health ministry and the Medicines Control authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) have all made major differences and saved lives,” Borody said.

“Jackie Stone (local doctor and proponent of the Ivermectinbased protocol)’s contributions are invaluable and she deserves hero status,” he said, adding that Zimbabwe was capable of being COVID-19-free by taking advantage of the triple combo.

This, he said, would avoid another lockdown which always leaves many people poorer.

The Centre for Digestive Diseases professor has previously been in the eye of a storm for saying the “triple therapy” of Ivermectin, Doxycycline and zinc “cured” some of his COVID-19 positive patients.

This “almost foolproof” threepronged treatment for coronavirus symptoms was last year rolled out in Victorian nursing homes, according to Borody.

At the time, he claimed, within 48 hours, their cough had gone down and fever decreased, while their oxygen levels had also significantly improved in that time.

The professor, who is also famous for the development of the triple-therapy cure for peptic ulcers in 1987, said the COVID-19 combo was not being given a fair chance.

Speaking on vaccines, Borody said they were a good preventive measure, although not a cure.

“A vaccine is not 100% effective and does not cure,” he said.

Stone, who also addressed the virtual meeting, said plenty of reviews had proven Ivermentin’s efficacy, adding that there were reduced deaths for those that used the regimen.

Zimbabwe early this year approved the use and imports of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients.

A recent statement by the Health ministry, addressed to the MCAZ, stated that COVID-19 patients should not be denied effective treatment regimes.