Doctors in Delhi have said that they have observed an increase in the number of convalescent plasma transfusions equivalent to the increase in the total number of COVID-19 cases in the last 2 weeks.

Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, Senior consultant, Internal medicine at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital said that they have observed an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients in the last 10 days from neighbouring states too. Several of them had qualified for convalescent plasma therapy and therefore there was an increase.

He had warned people not to think that it is a miracle cure. Several experimental therapies are being administered to patients, so they don’t know which therapy is working and which is not working. Their clinical experience has seen some improvements in patients after plasma therapy if it is administered at the right time.

Arecent study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has found that the treatment was not related with any decrease in mortality or progression to severe disease. The trial was conducted across the country at around 39 public and private hospitals in between April and July to assess the efficacy of the therapy for COVID-19. Convalescent plasma therapy generally uses an antibody-rich blood component known as plasma from a person who was positive and is recovered from the infection to support the immune response of somebody who is still fighting with COVID-19.

Dr SK Sarin, director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) had conducted a small study in coordination with Lok Nayak Hospital and the study from ICMR supports the Delhi’s phase1 trial.

Dr Sarin said that the ICMR study reconfirms the findings of their small study. It shows that the oxygen necessity of the patients who had received the plasma therapy reduces and the duration for breathlessness also reduces. The group who received plasma therapy tested negative for the coronavirus faster than others. It needs to be factored that the therapy was administered after two days of symptoms in most participants of the trial; however, it works best when it is given early. Many of the donors in the study did not have a high concentration of the neutralising antibodies. For the study, a shorter duration rather than the original 28 days should be chosen as mortality might be because of other complications.

The trial by ILBS and Lok Nayak Hospital, which is called COPLA in which 29 people received either convalescent plasma or fresh frozen plasma showed that plasma therapy facilitated to stabilise the respiratory rate, improve the saturation of oxygen levels and improve the organ failure score, which predicts multi-organ failure.

Currently, alarge-scale study of 400 participants is ongoing at Lok Nayak Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital in association with ILBS.

At Lok Nayak Hospital, the plasma therapy continues as the hospital has its own plasma bank. Dr Suresh Kumar, medical director, Lok Nayak Hospital said that the ICMR study states that there is a mortality benefit. The study does not suggest that the therapy should be stopped. Their own study has shown encouraging results and from the ICMR trial it is clear that the plasma needs to be given at an earlier stage and not very late when the patient is on ventilator.

The hospital has administered the therapy to 85 people under the trial and to 59 patients outside the trial. 100 people have received the therapy under trial and a few received it outside the trial at Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital. Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital is the third Delhi government hospital to have a plasma bank and 34 people have received the therapy till now.

Source: Hindustan Times