All of the information contained in this post is gathered from an article posted in the Lancet: Infectious Diseases. The full text of the article is also available here
Medical Journal Articles are not a priority in a Pandemic; however, we are trying to locate promising information and summarize it whenever possible. If you have questions and would like to comment below- we will do our best to answer them.
Convalescent plasma as a potential therapy for COVID-19 : KEY Points
- Convalescent plasma or immunoglobulins have been used as a last resort to improve the survival rate of patients with SARS whose condition continued to deteriorate despite treatment with pulsed methylprednisolone.
- Several studies showed a shorter hospital stay and lower mortality in patients treated with convalescent plasma than those who were not treated with convalescent plasma.
- Similar protocols for convalescent plasma were used with Ebola (2014) and MERS (2015) with limited success.
- Patients with pandemic 2009 influenza A H1N1 (H1N1pdm09) virus infection, showed a significant reduction in the relative risk of mortality with convalescent plasma.
- One possible explanation for the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy is that the antibodies from convalescent plasma might suppress viraemia
- Viraemia peaks in the first week of infection in most viral illnesses. The patient usually develops a primary immune response by days 10–14, which is followed by virus clearance.4 Therefore, theoretically, it should be more effective to administer the convalescent plasma at the early stage of the disease.
- The current guidelines emphasize that systematic corticosteroids should not be given routinely for the treatment of COVID-19
