DCGI nod awaited for plasma therapy to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients: ICMR

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday said that it was finalising the protocol for convalescent plasma therapy for the treatment of severely ill COVID-19 patients.

A pilot trial of convalescent plasma therapy in 10 severe COVID-19 patients has shown it may be safe and a promising therapeutic option for severe infections.

“We are in the process of finalising the protocol for convalescent plasma therapy. Then we will have to take approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) before conducting any clinical trial,” Manoj Murhekar, Director, National Institute of Epidemiology, told reporters here on Thursday.

The therapy involves transfusion of plasma donated by a person recovered from COVID-19 to a severely ill patients. Scientists in Wuhan saw improvement in severely ill patients within three days of transfusion of convalescent plasma.

Murhekar also said that the therapy will not be used for all patients, but only for severe cases such as those on ventilator support. He said that many countries have found it successful in limited clinical trials.

“It is only for severe patients who are on ventilators and not for patients with less severity,” Murhekar said.

Kerala government had sought permission to use the convalescent plasma therapy on an experimental basis on severely ill patients.

Murhekar said the ICMR had tested 1.3 lakh samples so far of which 5734 have tested positive.

“The rate of positive cases ranged between 3% and 5% in the last one-and-a-half months. It has not increased substantially,” Murhekar said.

Besides, two Council of Scientific and Industrial Research labs – Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi – have started working on genomic sequencing to understand the evolution of the COVID-19 virus.