The World Health Organization now strongly recommends against the use of convalescent plasma in the treatment of COVID-19 patients regardless of their stage of illness. This recommendation, announced in an updated guideline today (December 6), is based on multiple clinical trials that involved more than 16,000 patients.
Convalescent plasma is plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, which includes any SARS-CoV-2–neutralizing antibodies they are producing. It was proposed that infusing such plasma into people with current infections could alleviate symptoms. In March 2020, the FDA allowed researchers to request authorization to use this plasma therapy under an emergency investigational new drug protocol for patients critically ill with the disease, despite the lack of data from clinical trials.
In August of last year, the FDA granted emergency use for convalescent plasma use as a treatment for COVID-19 amid skepticism from many experts. At the time, National Institutes of Health (NIH) ...
