Convalescent plasma therapy that was earlier done as a trial in COVID-19 patients by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has now become a part of clinical treatment in Tamil Nadu.

The State is administering it based on their experiential result, despite an ICMR study that had recently concluded that the plasma therapy might benefit little in reducing mortality.

The plasma trials which was started by ICMR is now completed in the State, however the doctors are clinically using plasma treatment for treating COVID-19 patients on a regular basis because of its positive outcome.

A doctor in-charge of plasma treatment at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital said that till now they had administered plasma treatment on 490 patients and was largely successful except for two occasions.

The doctors highlighted the problems with the ICMR study, stating that there is no method of checking whether a person is administered neutralizing antibodies because of lack of qualitative commercial testing kits. Based on their experience, doctors mentioned that an early shot of plasma therapy might help patients to recover soon. ICMR’s largest study called PLACID, had administered plasma from 262 donors to almost 464 participants.

The patients were divided into 235 (intervention group) and 229 (control group). Plasma therapy was administered in the first group, in which 34 (14.5 %) patients died whereas 31 (13.5%) died in the second group. The study was done across 39 public and private hospitals and concluded that even though the use of plasma therapy improves shortness of breath and fatigue, no difference was observed in mortality. But, as per the pre-print of the study, that was published in MedRxiv server, the ICMR did not check for any presence of neutralizing antibodies from donors before the transfusion due to lack of qualitative testing kits.

Public health experts stated that the plasma has neutralizing antibodies in COVID recovered patients alone and can have effect in decreasing the viral impact.

Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, Infectious Diseases Specialist, Gleneagles Global Health City said that if one has specific antibodies that neutralizes the virus in good amounts, then it will prevent the body from getting haywire. He said that there are no commercial testing kits to test the existence of neutralizing antibodies and after administering the plasma to patients, the effect will be known. All donors do not have neutralizing antibodies to kill the virus. But still the plasma therapy given in the 1st week of treatment would be effective.

J Radhakrishnan, Health Secretary said that plasma therapy gave good results in Tamil Nadu and, hence, being used clinically. Also, recently, the Chief Justice of Madras High Court was given plasma therapy.

Source: The New Indian Express