Plasma Therapy Not Effective In Treating Covid-19? ICMR Likely To Drop It From Clinical Management Guidelines

Public health professionals in a letter to the ICMR, alleged that there is no benefit offered by convalescent plasma for treatment of COVID-19.

In a meeting of the ICMR-National Task Force for COVID-19, members discussed on the effectiveness of the plasma therapy on COVID-19 patients, and discussed that the therapy has not been found effective in reducing the progression to severe disease or death. The members reportedly stood in support of dropping plasma therapy from the clinical management guidelines. 

Citing its ineffectiveness and inappropriate use in several cases, the panel recommended on removing the use of convalescent plasma from the Clinical Guidance for Management of Adult COVID-19 Patients. 

News agency PTI quoted sources saying that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will issue an advisory on the matter soon. 

At present, the clinical management guidelines allow "off label" use of plasma therapy at the stage when the disease is detected to be moderate - within seven days of the onset of symptoms. 

The decision to remove the Plasma Therapy from guidelines came after Principal Scientific Advisor K VijayRaghavan received cautioning letter from some clinicians and scientists who warned of the "irrational and non-scientific use" of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 in the country.

As stated in the report, public health professionals in a letter to health officials including ICMR chief Balram Bhargava and AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, claimed that "the current guidelines on plasma therapy are not based on existing evidence and pointed out some very early evidence that indicates a possible association between emergence of variants with lower susceptibility to neutralising antibodies in immunosuppressed" people given plasma therapy."

The letter to the medical apex body ICMR reportedly said, "The current research evidence unanimously indicates that there is no benefit offered by convalescent plasma for treatment of COVID-19. However, it continues to be prescribed rampantly in hospitals across India." 

Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an experimental procedure for Covid-19 patients. In this treatment, plasma, a blood component, from a cured patient is transfused to a critically ill Coronavirus patient.

The blood of a person who has recovered from Covid-19 develops antibodies to fight the virus. This therapy uses antibodies from the blood of a cured coronavirus patient to treat another critical patient.