- More virulent strains being developed due to plasma therapy
- Lancet publication says plasma is not effective in reducing deaths
- ICMR-AIIMS and Health Ministry of India issue joint statement
New Delhi: Plasma Therapy, which is said to be a last trial to save life in COVID-19 management in clinical treatment has been stopped in India. The statement was released jointly by AIIMs-ICMR and Health Ministry of India on Monday night. The statement came after scientists and several clinicians wrote a letter to K. Vijay Raghavan (Principle Scientific Advisor) informing about the “irrational and non-scientific use” of convalescent plasma for COVID-19.
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Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT) may give rise to more virulent strains due to irrational use which can potentially fuel the pandemic. Letter signed by Vaccinologist, Gagandeep Kang, Surgoen Pramesh and others pointed fingers that possibility of an association between the emergence of variants with lower susceptibility to neutralising antibodies in immune suppressed people given plasma therapy.
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Indian government dropped CPT from National clinical management protocol for COVID-19 as the therapy was found ineffective.
PLACID and ICMR confirmed in 2020
In October, 2020 study published by ICMR and India’s largest Trial, PLACID, confirmed that convalescent plasma was ineffective in arresting COVID-19. Therapy had been widely used in India to treat COVID-19 patients could not reduce the deaths which was confirmed by data released by ICMR. “The recovery trails document was examined and shows that there is no benefit” claimed ICMR.
Also read: What Really Happened in Wuhan?
This was recently confirmed by British medical Journal, Lancet, which published that strong evidence reconfirming that plasma is not effective in reducing deaths in COVID-19 hospitalisation.
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Researchers from UCL and Cambridge warned earlier
Treatment of COVID-19 over an extended period provides the virus multiple opportunities to evolve, say researchers led by UCL. They observed SARS-CoV-2 mutating in the case of patient treated with convalescent Plasma.
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Now the researchers are also saying that drug Remdesivir should be banned in treatment of COVID 19. “A drug like Remdesivir is known to attack one of those enzymes, not all. This will give the virus a chance to try and produce a progeny with mutation where the drug is attacking,” is the version of researchers.
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