What are your thoughts on this action by the U.S.?
The U.S. Administration rammed an FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for convalescent plasma and forced FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to falsely voice the Administrations claim that it reduces mortality by 35%. Hahn was severely rebuked by the medical profession.
So here’s what’s known. Based on the largest trial to date by the Mayo Clinic, there is no evidence of reduced mortality as this and no trials have been conducted with a placebo control. Instead the data suggest that plasma can reduce the risk of death from 8.9% to 13.7% for low to high doses of plasma. The misquoted 35% figure is a relative number and comes from the difference between 8.9% and 13.7% [(13.7-8.9)/13.7 = 35%] and that is not even for reduced death, but rather reduced risk of death meaning they recovered a little sooner. Totally deceptive. The best estimates for absolute reduction of mortality by plasma infusion are about 3.5%. Hardly a breakthrough.
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Please see the links below.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1088-9
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9490
Please see the links below.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1088-9
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9490
this is an study show How effective is convalescence plasma against SARS-CoV-2? .....
Currently, there are no approved specific antiviral agents for novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this study, 10 severe patients confirmed by real-time viral RNA test were enrolled prospectively. One dose of 200 mL of convalescent plasma (CP) derived from recently recovered donors with the neutralizing antibody titers above 1:640 was transfused to the patients as an addition to maximal supportive care and antiviral agents. The primary endpoint was the safety of CP transfusion. The second endpoints were the improvement of clinical symptoms and laboratory parameters within 3 d after CP transfusion. The median time from onset of illness to CP transfusion was 16.5 d. After CP transfusion, the level of neutralizing antibody increased rapidly up to 1:640 in five cases, while that of the other four cases maintained at a high level (1:640). The clinical symptoms were significantly improved along with increase of oxyhemoglobin saturation within 3 d. Several parameters tended to improve as compared to pretransfusion, including increased lymphocyte counts (0.65 × 109/L vs. 0.76 × 109/L) and decreased C-reactive protein (55.98 mg/L vs. 18.13 mg/L). Radiological examinations showed varying degrees of absorption of lung lesions within 7 d. The viral load was undetectable after transfusion in seven patients who had previous viremia. No severe adverse effects were observed. This study showed CP therapy was well tolerated and could potentially improve the clinical outcomes through neutralizing viremia in severe COVID-19 cases. The optimal dose and time point, as well as the clinical benefit of CP therapy, needs further investigation in larger well-controlled trials.
Kindly have a lookat this useful article:
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9490
Convalescent plasma, donated by persons who have recovered from COVID-19, is the acellular component of blood that contains antibodies, including those that specifically recognize SARS-CoV-2. These antibodies, when transfused into patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, are thought to exert an antiviral effect, suppressing virus replication before patients have mounted their own humoral immune responses. Virus-specific antibodies from recovered persons are often the first available therapy for an emerging infectious disease, a stopgap treatment while new antivirals and vaccines are being developed. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1088-9
A meta-analysis, which included 2 studies of SARS, 5 of H1N1 and one of H5N1, showed that convalescent plasma or serum compared with placebo or no therapy significantly reduced mortality risk (odds ratio = 0.25; P < 0.001). In nearly 2 months, between Mar. 2020 and Apr. 2020, 2 studies and 3 case reports of CP therapy of COVID-19 were published; all of which displayed clinical efficacy https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1559325820979921
Also, see the links below.
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1473-3099(20)30141-9/fulltext
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00437/full
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