Can Plasma Therapy Help in Treating COVID-19?
With the coronavirus disease causing the deaths of people in large numbers, the scientific community worldwide is geared up to develop medicines, vaccines and other treatment procedures for treating the novel COVID-19. One of those treatments that is being widely discussed currently is known as the Convalescent Plasma Therapy. The Indian government is now working towards formulating a procedure to carry out clinical testing for evaluating the effectiveness of plasma therapy. Plasma Therapy as a method of treatment has been approved for clinical testing in patients suffering from COVID-19 in India. This procedure is undertaken by transferring plasma from the blood of a patient who has successfully recuperated from the ailment to another patient of coronavirus who is severely ill.
Convalescent Plasma Therapy is based on the proposition that it is possible to pass on immunity from a healthy individual to an ill patient through the use of convalescent plasma. And in this process, antibodies present in the blood of patients who have recovered from the ailment are used in the treatment of other severely ill patients. The blood of a patient who has recovered from COVID-19 grows antibodies that are used for fighting the disease and when such blood is transferred to a severely ill patient of coronavirus the antibodies spring into action and kickstart their fight against the ailment.
Has Convalescent Plasma Therapy Proven to Be Effective Against Coronavirus Disease?
The effectiveness of plasma therapy as a possible treatment of the coronavirus disease has already been examined a limited study in China where the epidemic first appeared. In one of such experiments, 10 of the seriously ill patients were treated with plasma therapy and the testing came to a close, a little improvement in the condition of patients was seen. The researchers who carried out the experiment had remarked that no serious and unpleasant effects were noticed in the study and further according to them the experiment demonstrated that plasma therapy was well tolerated and could possibly boost clinical results by counteracting the existence of viruses in blood in serious coronavirus cases.
Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi, has stressed on the encouraging results shown by Convalescent Plasma Therapy on several patients admitted in the city. He has also mentioned that plasma therapy undertaken on four patients of coronavirus at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital in the capital has yielded positive outcomes.
However, in spite of several studies showing encouraging results, researchers across the world have advised against considering Convalescent Plasma Therapy to be an effective procedure for treating COVID-19. According to them, clinical trials are underway and it is too early to arrive at final conclusions.
