Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID 19

1. Plasma therapy in the treatment of
COVID 19
“Recovered COVID 19 patients are the
treatment”
Varsha Velu

2.  Convalescent means the
medical treatment or the
individual recovering from the
illness. So the idea behind this
is where the infected person by
chance recovered by either the
medical or natural means will
be produced with the protein
called antibodies which fights
against the pathogen now let’s
say the novel virus. So more
the recovered donors more the
plasma.
 Now such immunity can be
transferred to the infected
person who is still on medical
care i.e the immune donor

3.  Blood plasma apheresis is done from the recovered patients by the
process called Plasma apheresis. Screening should be done to check
for the virus neutralizing antibodies /immunoglobulin.
 When the foreign agent attacks the body ,the bodies own healing
mechanism is initiated in accordance with immune spike.
 This immune spike tends to release the antibodies (IgG,IgM)to fight
against the antigens. This makes the infected person to feel better and
improve from the infection if the therapy is done within 3-4days of
infection.
 Convalescent plasma has the advantage that while it’s antibodies
limit viral replication, other plasma components can also exert
beneficial effects such as replenishing coagulation factors.

4.  The use of convalescent plasma therapy (CP) is not a new
method this was already used for SARS in 2003 and other viral
infections.
 Iran and China was the countries first started with
convalescent plasma therapy .The ultimate trials and results
showed good betterment within the patients when compared
to the ventilators treatment.
 Kerala to be the 1st state in India to start the trials with Plasma
therapy.
 One of the private hospital in Delhi started testing CP on the
patient due to the acceptance of the immune donor.
 Still in India this therapy is seem to be in clinical trial because
of the very less of the recovered cases. As on the current
update on 16th of April 2020 as many as 572 people who have
recovered from the infection.

5. • Immunoglobulins are the component of blood plasma which is
separated by the centrifugation process .When this is
administered to the infected person the immune spike can also
lead to hypersensitivity leading to allergic reaction.
• So the passive antibody therapy involves the administration of
antibodies against a given agent to a susceptible individual for
the purpose of preventing or treating an infectious disease due
to that agent. In contrast, active vaccination requires the
induction of an immune response that takes time to develop
and varies depending on the vaccine recipient.

6. Undergoing this therapy in prophylaxis condition with some
anti-inflammatory drugs and also giving in the interferon to
replenish the immune response shows efficiency in neutralizing
the viral effect.
Also these antibodies works by modifying the inflammatory
response.

7.  Spike proteins(S) are the glycoproteins present on the membrane of the
virus. Studies says that the interaction between ACE2(Angiotensin
converting enzyme2)and S proteins helps in SARS-CoV-2 entry. In previous
experience with SARS suggested that CP showed neutralizing antibodies
response against S protein. Now in the study of COVID 19 it is proved that
both SARS and COIVID 19 shows similar way of entry.
 ACE2 role is to control blood pressure which means vasodilation and
vasoconstriction this leads to cytokine storm leading to immune
response.The additional information is that the children develop ACE2 less
when compared to adults and old. So virus entry can be slowed down in
them.
 With the above context we can state that the idea of convalescent plasma
therapy could be the convalescent idea for the novel COVID 19.
“SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING”

9. 1. Qian Zhao, Yong He, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care
Medicine,Journal of clinical virology, challenges of Convalescent Plasma
Therapy on COVID 19,Volume 127, June 2020, 104358.
2. Long Chen, Jing Xiong, Lei Bao, Yuan Shi, Convalescent Plasma Therapy as
a potential therapy for COVID 19,The Lancet Infectious Diseases,Volume 20,
Issue 4April 2020Pages 398-400.
3. John D. Roback, Convalescent Plasma to Treat COVID-19 Possibilities and
Challenges, Published online March 27, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4940.
4. Arturo Casadevall and Liise-anne Pirofski, The convalescent sera option for
containing COVID-19,March 13 2020.
5. Treatment with Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID 19 patients in
Wuhan,China, Department of Infectious Disease.
6. Philip Keith et.al,BMC, A novel treatment approach to the novel coronavirus:
an argument for the use of therapeutic plasma exchange for fulminant
COVID-19,Published on April 2, Article number: 128 (2020).