India To Discard Convalescent Plasma Therapy From COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines, ‘Not Helping’ Says ICMR, Days After WHO Says Remdesivir Not Effective

In a development with huge ramifications concerning the treatment protocol for COVID-19 infection, India has decided to delete convalescent plasma as an investigational therapy from its treatment protocol guidelines. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Professor Balram Bhargava on October 20 said "discussions are on in the national task force on Covid-19 for deletion on plasma therapy from the national treatment guidelines". Bhargava said in response to a question on continued use of plasma therapy (CPT) despite an ICMR trial showing it does not reduce mortality or slow the progression of COVID-19. Government's decision to discard plasma therapy also comes at a time when there is a rethink on Remdesivir. The solidarity trials done by WHO, in which India was a participant, showed Remdesivir was not effective in reducing mortality in COVID-19 patients. The results are from WHO's "Solidarity" trial, which evaluated the effects of four potential drug regimens, including remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, anti-HIV drug combination lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon, in 11,266 adult patients across more than 30 countries. Reiterating that there was no scope of "letting our guard down" even though the coronavirus peak has passed in India and COVID-19 may "almost end by February", Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said "experts have said cases will spike again if precautions are not followed". “All precautions should continue even when we have a vaccine", Dr Balram said indicating that the fight against COVID-19 would have to be fought for a long time even after India starts inoculating its 1.3 billion-strong population. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had recently said India would have a coronavirus vaccine early next year, and there were several front-runners.