Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19

Lenzi, Luana and Lee-Jones, Lisa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1255-3545 (2020) Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19. Cancer Studies and Therapeutics, 5 (3). pp. 2-3. ISSN 2002-7184

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Abstract

A novel flu-like coronavirus emerged from Wuhan, China in December 2019. It was named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, (SARS-CoV-2), and causes Coronavirus Disease 2019, (COVID-19) [1]. SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spread, and on March 11th, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic [2]. As of July 3rd there have been 10,719,946 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 517,337 deaths, reported to the World Health Organization [3]. Many therapies are being investigated for their anti-viral or immune modulation properties to treat COVID-19, with efficacy so far being demonstrated for dexamethasone [4] and remdesivir [5]. In recent pandemics, no standardized treatments were identified for SARS-CoV-1, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or Ebola, due to the limited number of controlled clinical trials undertaken at the time, with none performed on SARS-CoV-1, and only 3 and 11 for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Ebola, respectively [6]. However, this has been addressed for COVID-19, and there are currently 1,358 clinical trials registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, of which 209 are investigating the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVD-19 [7].