A Chicago hospital has become the latest local health care center to be pressured to provide the controversial medication ivermectin to a patient who is allegedly suffering from COVID-19.

       Spokesman Tim Nelson said AMITA Health Resurrection Medical Center Chicago received hundreds of phone calls and emails related to the patient’s care after word of her hospitalization spread on the Telegram social media platform.

       The hospital staff, Nelson said, “have respectfully noted the concerns shared.”

       An online flyer says the woman is suffering from “COVID pneumonia” and that Resurrection would not allow her to receive ivermectin, a medication typically used to treat diseases caused by parasitic worms.

       In this file photo a health worker shows a bottle of Ivermectin, a medicine authorized by the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (INVIMA) to treat patients with mild, asymptomatic or suspicious COVID-19, as part of a study of the Center for Paediatric Infectious Diseases Studies, in Cali, Colombia, on July 21, 2020. (LUIS ROBAYO / AFP via Getty Images)

       The Tribune is not naming the woman because neither she nor her family could be reached for comment. Nelson confirmed she was a patient at Resurrection but declined to discuss her diagnosis, citing medical privacy laws.

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       He said the hospital’s doctors and clinicians, following the guidance of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, do not use ivermectin for COVID cases. Though calls for a demonstration outside the hospital ricocheted around social media, Nelson said a protest never materialized.

       Some COVID patients and their families around the country have demanded that hospitals provide ivermectin as a treatment, sometimes taking the matter to court. In May, a DuPage County judge ordered Elmhurst Hospital to allow a comatose patient, Nurije Fype, to receive the medication after none of its physicians agreed to administer it.

       An outside doctor gave Fype the drugs, and according to a Twitter account run by her daughter, she improved and eventually returned home. Fype’s daughter last week declined an interview request from the Tribune.

       Ivermectin has increasingly become a culture war flashpoint. Critics, referring to its frequent veterinary use, dismiss it as “horse paste,” while believers point to studies they say prove its effectiveness. Numerous clinical trials designed to test its worth as a COVID treatment are still underway.

       The FDA discourages ivermectin’s use as a COVID treatment, saying in a consumer update that overdoses can cause nausea, low blood pressure, seizures, coma and even death. The American Association of Poison Control Centers says cases related to the drug have more than doubled over last year, with 459 recorded in August alone.

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       Last week, the American Medical Association and two pharmacist trade groups said they strongly oppose ivermectin’s use for COVID outside of a clinical trial.

       jkeilman@chicagotribune.com

       Twitter @JohnKeilman

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