CHENNAI: Convalescent plasma therapy for Covid-19 patients, which was earlier done as a trial along with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has now become part of clinical treatment in Tamil Nadu. Despite an ICMR study recently concluding that plasma treatment may have little benefit in reducing mortality, the State continues to administer it based on experiential result.
While plasma trials started by ICMR is now over in the State, doctors are clinically using plasma therapy for treating patients on a daily basis due to its ‘good outcome.’“So far, we have administered plasma therapy on 490 patients and it has largely been successful,” says a doctor in-charge of plasma therapy at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. Except for two occasions, the treatment has been successful so far, the doctor adds.
‘Efficacy still disputed’
While doctors point out problems with the ICMR study, they say that, at present, there is no way of checking if a person is administered neutralizing antibodies due to lack of qualitative commercial testing kits. However, based on experience, doctors say that an early shot of plasma treatment may help patients recover. ICMR, in its largest study called PLACID, administered plasma from 262 donors to 464 participants.
The patients were divided into two groups -- 235 (intervention group) and 229 (control group). Plasma treatment was administered in the first group, where 34 (14.5 per cent) patients eventually died while 31 (13.5) died in the second group.
Thus, the study, which was done across 39 public and private hospitals, concluded that although the use of plasma seemed to improve resolution of shortness of breath and fatigue, there was no difference in mortality. However, according to the pre-print of the study, published in MedRxiv server, the ICMR did not check for the presence of neutralizing antibodies from donors before transfusion owing to lack of qualitative kits at the time it was performed.
Public health experts say the plasma which has neutralizing antibodies in Covid recovered patients alone can have effect in reducing the viral impact. “If you have specific antibodies which will neutralize the virus in good quantity, it will prevent the body from going haywire,” says Dr Subramanian Swaminathan, Infectious Diseases Specialist at Gleneagles Global Health City.
However, he says that there are no commercial kits to test the presence of neutralizing antibodies and only after administering the plasma to patients, the effect is known. “Not all donors have neutralizing antibodies to kill the virus. Still, plasma therapy given on the first week of treatment would be beneficial and effective,” says Swaminathan, adding that if it is administered on a right time window, it would help in reducing mortality.
Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan says plasma therapy has given good results in Tamil Nadu and, therefore, is being used clinically. “We go by the success of our results from the State and it has largely benefitted patients. Recently, the Chief Justice of Madras High Court was also given plasma therapy,” says Radhakrishnan.
TN records 1,652 cases
Chennai: TN reported 1,652 Covid-19 positive cases and 18 deaths, taking the tally to 7,61,568 and toll to 11,513 on Tuesday. Two private labs, Laboratory Services, Immunogene Healthcare Pvt Lts, Chennai and Swastik Diagnositc Centre, Coimbatore have been approved for Covid-19 testing. A 52 year old head constable in Central Industrial Security Force and a 40 year old man from Chennai were discharged after over two months of treatment.