Convalescent plasma from a patient with recovered coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is seen at the Seattle Central Donor Center in Bloodworks Northwest during the outbreak in Seattle, Washington, April 17, 2020.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
The National Institutes of Health said on Tuesday it had stopped a convalescent plasma testing study in patients with mild to moderate symptoms of Covid-19 after an independent group of experts concluded it was unlikely to be beneficial.
The Independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board met on February 25 to review the data and determined that while plasma treatment did not cause any harm, it is unlikely to benefit this group of patients, the NIH said in a statement. After the meeting, the DSMB recommended that the NIH stop enrolling new patients in the study, the agency said.
Scientists and public health officials have previously said that convalescent plasma skepticism is an effective treatment for patients with Covid, even after the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use permit for treatment in August and former President Donald Trump made it known as a “discovery.” “
At the time, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner, said the treatment could help patients, but “it doesn’t look like home.” He agreed that convalescent plasma “certainly” meets the standard for approving emergency use “in a public health emergency”.
Plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 and developed antibodies to the virus, is infused into sick patients. The scientists hoped it would help trigger the immune system in those patients to fight the virus.
In January, REMAP-CAP, an international clinical trial exploring potential treatments for Covid, stopped studying convalescent blood plasma testing after the study’s investigators found no benefits. The decision made by REMAP-CAP came after an initial analysis of more than 900 study participants seriously ill in intensive care showed that treatment with the product did not significantly improve the patient’s health.
The NIH trial was conducted at 47 emergency departments of hospitals in the United States and enrolled 511 out of the 900 recruit recruitment target. After study participants received either plasma or a placebo, the researchers looked at whether participants needed to seek emergency or emergency care, had to be hospitalized, or died within 15 days of entering the trial.