The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Tuesday that convalescent plasma therapy could soon be discontinued as a treatment for COVID-19 patients. ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava told media that the therapy may be deleted from the national clinical protocols for the management of COVID-19.
"We have had a discussion with the National Task Force for Covid-19 management. We are discussing further with the joint monitoring committee and contemplating on removing the plasma therapy from the national guidelines," Bhargava said.
Plasma therapy has been used widely across the country as part of the COVID-19 treatment though it has been permitted as an experimental treatment.
However, several studies conducted on the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy suggested that it did not reduce mortality or progression to severe disease condition. A study conducted by the ICMR had found that plasma therapy did not help in reducing mortality.
"We are more or less reaching towards a decision (to remove plasma therapy from the national clinical protocols)," Bhargava said during the weekly press briefing of the Union Health Ministry.
The CP therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those into an active coronavirus patient to help kick-start the immune system to fight the infection.
The Clinical Management Protocols for COVID-19 issued by the Union health ministry on June 27 had allowed the use of convalescent plasma (off-label) for treating coronavirus-infected patients in the moderate stage of the illness under “investigational therapies”.
This authorisation had been paralleled by questionable practices such as calls for donors on social media, and the sale of CP in the black market with exorbitant price tags in India, the study said.
Additionally, although CP is a safe therapeutic modality, plasmapheresis, plasma storage and NAb measurement are all resource-intensive processes, with a limited number of institutes in the country having the capacity to undertake these activities in a quality-assured manner.
With inputs from PTI
