Study provides roadmap for using convalescent plasma as an effective COVID-19 treatment
A new analysis shows how convalescent plasma can be used to prevent hospitalizations and ultimately save lives, both for COVID-19 and for the next viral pandemic that inevitably arrives.
February 21, 2023
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, new variant outbreaks continue to fuel economic disruptions and hospitalizations across the globe. Effective therapies remain unavailable in much of the world, and circulating variants have rendered monoclonal antibody treatments ineffective. But a new analysis shows how convalescent plasma can be used as an effective and low-cost treatment both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the inevitable pandemics of the future.
In a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, an international team of researchers analyzed clinical data and concluded that among outpatients with COVID-19, antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 given early and in high dose reduced the risk of hospitalization.
“If the results of this meta-analysis had somehow been available in March of 2020, then I am certain that millions of lives would have been saved around the world,” said study author Dr. Adam C. Levine, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School.
While several other early treatments for COVID-19 have had similar results, including antivirals like Paxlovid and monoclonal antibodies, only convalescent plasma, the researchers concluded, is likely to be both available and affordable for the majority of the world’s population both now and early in the next viral pandemic.
“These findings will be helpful for this pandemic, especially in places like China, India and other parts of the world that lack access to antiviral medications like Paxlovid,” Levine said. “And because it provides information on how to more effectively use convalescent plasma as a therapy, this will be even more helpful in the next pandemic. This study is essentially a roadmap for how to do this right the next time.”