Coronavirus | ICMR warns against indiscriminate use of convalescent plasma therapy
The HinduThe Indian Council of Medical Research has warned against indiscriminate use of convalescent plasma therapy for treating COVID-19. On Wednesday, it released report of an open-label phase II multicentre randomised controlled trial conducted across 39 public and private hospitals on the use of CPT in management of cases with moderate infection. The report concluded that the therapy “did not lead to a reduction in progression to severe COVID or all-cause mortality in the group that received CPT as compared to the group that did not receive CPT.’’ Benefits of CPT in improving the clinical outcomes, reducing severity of disease, duration of hospitalisation and mortality in patients were dependent on the concentration of specific antibodies in convalescent plasma that could neutralise the effects of SARS-CoV-2, the ICMR said. PLACID is the world’s largest pragmatic trial on CPT conducted in 464 moderately ill-confirmed affected adults in a real-world setting, wherein no benefit of use of CPT could be established, the ICMR said.