Elucidating the pivotal role of convalescent plasma therapy in critically ill COVID-19 patients: A review

Richard, Seidu A.; Kampo, Sylvanus; Esquijarosa Hechavarria, Maite

World Health Organization (WHO) declared coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic in March 2020. Currently almost every country in the world has reported cases with moderate to high mortality rates. The European Union (EU), the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) are the severely affected countries. Nevertheless, the WHO is very much concern about countries with weak health systems. The clinical characteristics of COVID-19 varies extensively, ranging from asymptomatic infections to severe as well as critical pneumonia with high mortality rates in the elderly and patients with co-morbid medical illness. Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT) has been successfully used in treating various viral disease outbreaks such as 1918 influenza pneumonia pandemic, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, Machupo virus, Junin virus, Lassa virus, Ebola etc. High-titer specific antibodies maybe capable of binding to Coronavirus- 19 (CoV-19) and neutralize the viral particles, inhibit entry to uninfected cells, and trigger potent effector mechanisms such as complement activation as well as phagocytosis. Therefore, in most countries with very weak health systems with no Intensive Care Units (ICUs) or trained ICU physicians, early initiation of CPT for severely COVID- 19 patients may be rewarding. Therefore, solidarity control trials on CPT for COVID- 19 patients involving large number of patients are urgently needed.