Govt Drops Plasma Therapy From Covid-19 Management Guidelines Over ‘Ineffectiveness’
New Delhi – And in a big shift from the previous set standard on COVID-19 treatment, the government has now dropped Plasma Therapy from COVID-19 management guidelines. The government has said that plasma therapy was found ineffective in preventing deaths or even bringing down the severity of the infection.
It’s a full 360-degree turn on the use of convalescent plasma therapy in India. But it’s not something that one didn’t see coming. For months, the ICMR and national Task Force were deliberating on dropping plasma therapy for the treatment of COVID patients admitted in hospitals with moderate to severe disease.
In a letter to India’s principal scientific adviser, experts in public health had warned against the use of plasma therapy without any hard scientific evidence. The concern was that it raises the possibility of more virulent strains of COVID-19 due to its unregulated use.
The letter was signed by Professor Gagandeep Kang and Surgeon from HCS among others. All alone 2020 plasma therapy worked as one of the saving Arsenal in India’s fight against COVID-19. But ICMR’s study last September showed that plasma therapy failed to save people who were dying from COVID-19.
India had conducted the world’s largest randomized controlled trial to study the efficacy of plasma therapy. Trials were done on 464 patients in April and July at 39 centers across India. Results revealed that plasma did not show any significant difference in mortality between those who got it and those who didn’t.
But, the indiscriminate use of plasma therapy, so state governments and civil society groups appealing to donate plasma to save lives despite any hard evidence. Several state governments came forward to create plasma banks to store plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients. Many even became plasma donors. An ugly side also emerged black marketing of plasma for profits which News Unzip also exposed.
Even Lancet’s study meanwhile has discredited the use of plasma therapy as being effective in hospitalized patients having moderate to severe symptoms of COVID-19. The clinical management guidelines in India now only have Remdesivir and Tocilizumab as off-label use in hospitalized patients.
Meanwhile, one is left asking was plasma therapy, a sense of false hope throughout last year in the fight against COVID-19. And what will happen to the plasma banks that have been set up by many states and hope to save lives during the pandemic?
Image via – shutterstock
