Reiterating its stand on Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday issued an advisory against indiscriminate use of the therapy that has been widely used for COVID treatment in the country.
The top medical body had conducted an open-label phase II multicentre randomised controlled trial, known as PLACID Trial, across 39 public and private hospitals in the country on the use of convalescent plasma in the management of cases with moderate coronavirus infection. "It was concluded that CPT did not lead to a reduction in progression to severe COVID-19 or all-cause mortality in the group that received CPT as compared to the group that did not receive CPT4. Indiscriminate use of CPT is not advisable," the ICMR said in a fresh advisory.
"PLACID is the world’s largest pragmatic trial on CPT conducted in 464 moderately ill laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 affected adults in real-world setting wherein no benefit of use of CPT could be established," it stated.
The advisory comes even as the Union health ministry is in the process to issue a standard protocol for plasma therapy and plasma administration for treatment of COVID-19 patients immediately, following a meeting held by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to assess COVID situation in Delhi.
It is to be noted that the decision to devise an SOP for plasma therapy comes days after the Union Secretary for Health Research and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) chief Dr Balram Bhargava said the government is in the process of removing plasma therapy from the list of Covid treatments. This decision was based on an ICMR trial that reportedly proved the therapy ineffective.
