Plasma shows promise against COVID in study

Newly infected patients with COVID-19 saw a 54% decrease in the need for hospitalization after receiving plasma from people who had recovered from the virus, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers, which may offer hope for a new treatment option as variants threaten to reduce the effectiveness of other drugs.

Plasma must be administered early and must contain a large amount of antibodies, the study authors cautioned. The study was published on an online prepress service on Tuesday.

The researchers administered convalescent plasma, which is derived from the blood of recovered patients, within nine days of the onset of symptoms and compared a placebo plasma with one with many antibodies, called “high-titer” plasma.

Of 589 patients in the placebo group, 37 were hospitalized and of 592 who received high-titer plasma, 17 were hospitalized, according to a preprint of the study published in MediRxiv. Previous research has focused primarily on hospitalized patients. The researchers transfused the people in the study between June 2020 and October 2021 primarily with plasma from people who recovered from the original variant of COVID-19.

Convalescent plasma has had a troubled reputation ever since it was first touted by former President Donald Trump, who later lobbied the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize the treatment for emergency use. The FDA did so in August 2020, but then reduced its use in February to patients early in their hospitalization and struck down its green light for low-titer plasma because research showed it didn’t work as well.

A large national study in the UK was suspended in January after researchers found no evidence that convalescent plasma had an effect on hospitalized patients.

The Johns Hopkins researchers asked the FDA to extend emergency plasma clearance to COVID-19 patients who are not hospitalized, particularly given the emergence of variants that may be resistant to certain antivirals and monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies can also be difficult to find at times.

The researchers also noted that the trial was able to include pregnant people, who are at high risk for complications from COVID-19, but are largely excluded from trials of other treatments, as plasma has been shown to be safe. in studies.