Even as various States have already started exploring plasma therapy as a way to treat Covid-19 patients, results from the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR’s) convalescent plasma therapy (CPT) trials are still awaited.
Sources said that the results which are expected in a couple of weeks have delivered mixed outcomes— while some patients have recovered, there have also been cases of conditions worsening.
The trial is being conducted across 50 sites in the country, has collected data from 350-odd patients. The sample size for the trial is 425 patients.
The therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those antibodies into an active coronavirus patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection.
"The ICMR has initiated a multi-centre clinical trial, titled 'A Phase II, Open-Label, Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess the Safety and Efficacy of Convalescent Plasma to Limit COVID-19 Associated Complications in Moderate Disease (PLACID Trial)'," the apex health research body had said while launching the study.
CPT is being used in India on compassionate grounds by doctors and is also a part of the ICMR’s clinical management protocol of Covid-19. In this experimental therapy, blood plasma from a Covid-19 recovered patient (which is rich in antibodies to fight the virus) is transfused into another Covid patient. This is likely to boost the recipient’s immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Two sites in Ahmedabad (NHL Medical College and BJ Medical College), which are conducting the ICMR trials on CPT, have shown positive results, said sources, according to a few reports on the websites.
According to them, fair amounts of some patients have shown recovery under the trials that are likely to conclude in a week or two.
“Initial observations show a fair amount of patients on recovery mode though there have also been cases of conditions worsening.“
States like Delhi has already established plasma bank while Goa recently sought the ICMR nod to use the therapy to treat the disease which has killed over 20,000 people across the States in the country.