How Effective Is Plasma Therapy to Treat COVID-19, $7 Million Study to Find Out

Convalescent plasma therapy has produced promising results in treating the novel coronavirus.

Convalescent plasma — the plasma voluntarily donated by survivors of COVID-19 — contains antibodies that can locate and neutralize the coronavirus. By treating mild or severe patients of COVID-19 with it, we empower them with those very antibodies, enabling them to fend off the deadly virus.

In view of its success, researchers from Michigan Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Medical University of South Carolina, and Stanford Medicine have come together to study in detail the impact of convalescent plasma on the coronavirus as well as the immune system. The study will primarily answer the question of how the therapy (also referred to as passive immunization) prevents a mild infection from escalating to a severe, fatal one.

The study is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and has currently raised more than $7 million.

The word ‘mild’ is key here.

The study, conducted as part of the NHLBI Collaborating Network of Networks for Evaluating COVID-19 and Therapeutic Strategies (CONNECTS) initiative, the Clinical Trial of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma of Outpatients (C3PO), will chiefly focus on mild patients of COVID-19. It will study 600 COVID-19 patients at 50 US medical centers who arrive at the emergency units with mild illness. The aim is to find insights on how convalescent plasma prevents progression to severe symptoms or critical illness.

As Simone Glynn, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the NHLBI’s Blood Epidemiology and Clinical Therapeutics Branch, explained: “We think that convalescent plasma has the best chance of being effective if used when patients are just starting to show symptoms in order to decrease viral replication and the resulting severe inflammatory response that can be so damaging…What we want to find out is whether this plasma is effective enough to keep these at-risk patients from progressing to a point where they need hospitalization.”

If you want to donate your plasma, find a center near you

For more information visit: iplasma.life