Plasma Therapy No More a Part of COVID-19 Treatment Protocol

The government of India has removed convalescent plasma therapy from the clinical management guidelines on COVID-19. Plasma therapy was found to be ineffective in reducing the progression to severe disease or death in the case of COVID-19. Plasma therapy used blood plasma from people who had recovered from coronavirus to help others.

In a recent meeting of the ICMR-National Task Force, all members agreed to remove convalescent plasma therapy from the Clinical Guidance for Management of Adult COVID-19 Patients. The decision was made due to the ineffectiveness and inappropriate use of plasma therapy in multiple cases of coronavirus disease. The guidelines allowed "off label" use of plasma therapy at the stage of the early moderate disease. Now, plasma therapy will not be used in case of early moderate COVID-19 within seven days of the onset of symptoms. Moreover, if there is an availability of a high titre donor plasma.

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The decision to remove plasma therapy in the guidelines comes after findings of the RECOVERY trial were published in The Lancet. The study findings showcased that high-titre convalescent plasma did not reduce 28-day mortality in comparison to usual care alone. The researchers stated that in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, high-titre convalescent plasma did not improve chances of survival or other prespecified clinical outcomes. It must be noted that similar studies in China and the Netherlands have previously highlighted no major benefit of CPT in improving clinical outcomes in patients hospitalized due to COVID-19.

Earlier, the PLACID in India had found that convalescent plasma was ineffective in arresting Covid-19. An ICMR study published in October, 2020 had reported that convalescent plasma was not associated with a reduction in progression to severe COVID-19 or all-cause mortality.