WHO recommends not using plasma to treat COVID-19 patients

On Monday (December 6), the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that the plasma of people who have recovered from COVID-19 should not be used to treat sick patients. The organization stressed that current evidence shows that this treatment does not improve survival nor reduce the need for patients to use ventilators.

The hypothesis for using plasma to treat COVID-19 is that the plasma of recovered people contains antibodies that can neutralize the new corona virus, prevent it from replicating, as well as prevent tissue damage.

However, the results of several studies testing convalescent plasma treatment have not shown a clear benefit in the treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients. A trial in the United States was halted in March after it was found that plasma was not able to help treat COVID-19 patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

In a statement on December 6, WHO said that this method is also expensive and takes a long time to implement.

The WHO revealed that an international panel of experts has issued a strong recommendation against the use of convalescent plasma to treat non-serious patients. The panel also recommended contraindications to the use of plasma in critically ill and critically ill patients, except in the setting of a randomized controlled clinical trial.

This latest recommendation, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) is based on evidence from 16 plasma method trials involving 16,236 patients with non-severe, severe and high-risk COVID-19 infections. dramatic.