The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that the “indiscriminate use of Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT) is not advisable,” after a new randomised study that found it did not lead to the reduction of the progression of severe COVID-19.
ICMR-led open-label phase II multicentre randomised controlled trial results were published in the British Medical Journal in late October. The study enrolled 464 adults at 39 hospitals across India between 22 April to 14 July 2020. Eighty percent of patients had already developed their own antibodies against COVID-19, before blood plasma was infused in them.
The study concluded that convalescent plasma does not reduce 28-day mortality or progression to severe disease in patients admitted to hospital with moderate COVID-19.