The WHO strongly discourages convalescent plasma for the treatment of patients with Covid

The World Health Organization on Monday issued a strong recommendation against the administration of convalescent plasma for the treatment of patients with Covid-19, citing research that shows no improvement in patients who received treatment.

In convalescent plasma therapy, blood plasma is donated by someone who has recovered from the virus and is transferred to a patient who is battling the virus, in the hope that the donor’s antibodies will help fight the infection.

However, the WHO Guidelines Development Group found that “there was no clear benefit for critical outcomes such as mortality and mechanical ventilation in patients with mild, severe or critical illness, and significant resource needs in terms of cost and time of administration.”

The group says treatment also faces practical challenges such as finding and testing donors and collecting, storing and transporting plasma.

The recommendation is based on 16 trials with more than 16,000 patients with non-severe, severe and critical Covid infections. The group said treatment research should be continued in randomized controlled trials. The new recommendation is published in the British Medical Journal.

February the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reduced its authorization to use convalescent emergency plasma it covers only hospitalized patients in the early stages of disease progression and those hospitalized with immune system disorders in which they are unable to produce a strong antibody response.

“Plasma with low antibody levels has not been shown to be beneficial in COVID-19,” the FDA said in its revised emergency mandate in February.

The agency issued the original, broader U.S. emergency permit for all hospitalized patients in August 2020, when there were no other approved drugs for the virus. During the Trump administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar then celebrated the use of convalescent plasma as a “milestone” in efforts to fight Covid.

Since then, the FDA has approved two Covid treatments: GileadThe antiviral drug remdesivir in October 2020 and Regeneronnext month a cocktail of antibodies. PfizerThe two-dose vaccine was approved about a year ago.

The August. National Institutes of Health He also said that convalescent plasma did not help patients in a NIH-supported study on more than 500 adult patients with covid at the University of Pittsburgh. The trial was suspended in February due to inefficiency, the NIH said.

New England Journal of Medicine, iestudy published last month, found that convalescent plasma did not prevent disease progression in high – risk outpatients if given one week after the onset of symptoms. According to the study, it also did not improve clinical outcomes in hospitalized patients late in the course of the disease.

However, the study showed that convalescent plasma reduced disease progression in elderly, outpatient adults if given within 72 hours of the onset of symptoms.

Pfizer in Merck are currently seeking authorization for emergency use for oral antiviral drugs designed to reduce the risk of hospitalization due to Covid.