Facts and challenges in convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19

Kumar H

Pdf Page Numbers :- 112-116

Hitesh Kumar^1,*

¹Transfusion Medicine Specialist, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad-500003, Telangana, India

*Corresponding author: Dr. Hitesh Kumar, MD., Transfusion Medicine Specialist, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Minister Road, Secunderabad-500003, Telangana, India. Mobile: 917745565; Email: hiteshkhk@gmail.com

Received 7 September 2020; Revised 7 November 2020; Accepted 14 November 2020; Published 23 November 2020

Citation: Kumar H. Facts and challenges in convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19. J Med Sci Res. 2020; 8(S1):112-116. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17727/JMSR.2020/8S1-14

Copyright: © 2020 Kumar H. Published by KIMS Foundation and Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

The present coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the focus back onto the passive immunization potential of the Convalescent plasma. This however has many challenges as availability of recovered patients as donors, eligibility of recovered patients for convalescent plasma donation, Safety profile of convalescent plasma. Considering the lack of efficacious treatments for COVID 19 and the epidemic situation with high mortality rate, the evaluation of convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19 is the need of the hour. In this article, the feasibility and challenges are discussed based on the literature published on role of convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19. Based on the limited scientific data available, convalescent plasma transfusion (CPT) therapy in COVID-19 patients appears safe, clinically effective, and reduces mortality. However an ongoing clinical study at our Centre should give us a good direction to establish the efficacy of CPT to COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: convalescent plasma therapy; COVID-19; coronavirus; SARS-CoV-2