Study: Plasma Therapy Effective At Early Stage

New Delhi: Days after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended against the use of plasma therapy for

Covid-19

, a multi-centre clinical trial led by

Johns Hopkins Medicine

and the

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

has reiterated the treatment is beneficial indeed.

The trial findings conducted in the US have been posted on the preprint website MedRxiv.

It claims that administering convalescent plasma at early stages reduces the risk of hospitalisation by half for outpatients with Covid-19.

In Delhi, several hospitals had set up infrastructure to collect plasma from convalescent patients — those who have recovered from the disease and whose blood contains antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 – during the second wave. However, doctors said plasma collection was more or less discontinued due to contradictory reports on its efficacy.

Dr S K Sarin, the vice-chancellor of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), which housed one such plasma bank, said they collected close to 7,500 units of plasma used in many patients during the second wave. “Right now, we aren’t collecting it for two reasons: First, there isn’t much demand for convalescent plasma and second, because the use of plasma therapy is discouraged due to contradictory reports on its efficacy,” he said.

However, Dr Sarin said the new trial result might give it a new lease of life.

The Johns Hopkins-led trial was conducted on 1,181 outpatients between June 2020 and October 2021. The researchers provided all participants with one dose each of either polyclonal high-titer convalescent plasma (containing a concentrated mixture of antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2) or placebo control plasma (with no SARS-CoV-2 antibodies). The patients were 18 and older and had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 within eight days before the transfusion, according to a news release posted by Johns Hopkins.

It adds that the study found that 17 patients out of 592 (2.9%) who received the convalescent plasma required hospitalisation within 28 days of their transfusion, while 37 out of 589 (6.3%) who received placebo control plasma did. This translated to a relative risk reduction for hospitalisation of 54%.

“The changing, often unpredictable landscape of the Covid-19 pandemic demands multiple treatment options — especially in low and middle-income nations where frontline therapies like vaccines and monoclonal antibodies may not be readily available. Our study provides solid evidence that antibody-rich convalescent plasma should be part of the outpatient arsenal,” said study co-lead author David Sullivan, MD, professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sullivan has a joint appointment in infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.