Los Angeles: For 10 patients very critical after being infected by the new coronavirus, a single dose of antibodies drawn from the blood of people who had recovered from COVID-19 appeared to save lives, shorten the duration of symptoms, improve oxygen levels and speed up viral clearance, according to a newly published research report.
The preliminary findings have come out from a ‘pilot study’ published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), according to a report in the ‘Los Angeles Times’. Conducted at three hospitals in China, it promised only to suggest the benefits of harvesting immune antibodies from recovered people (also called convalescent plasma) and administering it to people battling a severe case of COVID-19.
The report offers hope that a therapy with a long history and a simple premise could be a powerful treatment for COVID-19 patients fighting for breath. With a vaccine at least a year away and no clear treatments available for COVID-19, the US Food and Drug Administration March 24 approved the use of such therapy as an experimental treatment in clinical trials and for critical patients without other options.
The new study gave enough indications that the experimental treatment will not be a disappointing one. One patient, a 46-year-old man with high blood pressure who showed up at a hospital with fever, cough, shortness of breath and chest pain, was relying on a ventilator to push oxygen into his lungs, and still his blood-oxygen level was a dismal 86 per cent (Normal readings range from 95% to 100%.)
Eleven days after his first symptoms had appeared, the patient received an infusion of so-called convalescent plasma. His blood tested negative on Day 12 for infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The body’s inflammation level went down sharply, his blood-oxygen level climbed to 90 per cent and on the 13th day he was taken off the ventilator.
Then there is a second case too in the United States. For a 49-year-old woman with no underlying illnesses, COVID-19 infection quickly progressed to shortness of breath and hospital admission. By day seven after the onset of her symptoms, she had severe lung infections and breathing problems. On day 10 following the onset of symptoms, she got an infusion of convalescent plasma. By day 12, she had cleared the virus from her system and her chest X-ray was clearing markedly.
A 50-year-old male with ‘massive infiltrates’ in both lungs showed a gradual clearing of his lungs and tested negative for infection 25 days after his first coronavirus symptoms appeared. In all 10 patients who were treated with the convalescent plasma recovered much quicker than expected. None of the 10 patients died, and only one unexpected side effect — a red bruise on one patient’s face — was detected.
“This pilot study on (convalescent plasma) therapy shows a potential therapeutic effect and low risk in the treatment of severe COVID-19 patients,” the authors of the new research wrote. “One dose of (convalescent plasma) with a high concentration of neutralizing antibodies can rapidly reduce the viral load and tends to improve clinical outcomes,” the researchers led by Kai Duan of China’s National Biotec Group Co Ltd added.
Agencies
