Picture: iStock.
Two patients hospitalised with Covid-19 are the first to be enrolled in a clinical trial to establish if blood transfusion with convalescent plasma improved infection.
The PROTECT-Patient clinical trial by the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) in collaboration with the Western Cape Blood Service collected convalescent plasma from 298 donors who have recovered from Covid-19.
The plasma is extracted from blood drawn as that was where Covid-19 antibodies were found. It is then given to someone who is currently infected with the virus, said SANBS spokesperson Dr Karen der Berg.
“We take antibodies from someone who developed it actively on their own and give it to people who are sick and don’t have antibodies yet. We are going to see whether this is going to help them get better quicker,” she said.
The ideal patient for the study was someone who was recently infected and recently admitted into hospital but had not yet required to be on a ventilator.
“If you give it to them at that stage, the hypothesis is it would prevent needing a ventilator. That is what we are going to investigate [because] there is no evidence to prove or disprove that convalescent plasma works.”
Should the trial succeed, it would be able to shorten the duration of the virus, leading to fewer Covid-19 deaths, less people needing intensive hospital care and patients being discharged sooner, she said.
But convalescent plasma had risks such as allergic reactions to the new receiver such as difficulty in breathing, said epidemiologist Professor Jo Barnes.
“Covid-19 is already a lung disease so we need to watch out for that. There are a number of things they have to keep in mind. We have had no long-term experience with it and the data that we have are a patient here and there, which is why formal tests are run now,” Barnes said.
“It looks like it could lower the peak and shorten the duration of infection but it is not a given.”
Should the trial be a success, the SANBS would make the convalescent plasma immediately available at a cheap rate to mostly public hospitals as that was where the blood banks were stationed, Der Berg said.
“Establishing whether convalescent plasma is a viable treatment for Covid-19 is an important part of developing an arsenal of treatment options if South Africa were to have a second wave of infections before the large-scale availability of a safe and effective vaccine. Should the treatment prove effective, South Africa would be self-reliant in providing convalescent plasma treatment to all patients, whether in the public or private sector.”
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
