The government is actively discussing whether plasma therapy should be removed from the list of treatment options for Covid-19 patients under the national guidelines for the management of Covid.
“We are now discussing it with the joint monitoring group for the deletion of plasma therapy from the national guidelines,” Dr Bhargava said. “That is the discussion ongoing and more or less we are reaching towards that.”
An ICMR plasma study in 39 hospitals across 14 states and UTs showed that plasma didn’t appear to have any benefits in moderately-ill COVID-19 patients.
Reiterating that there was no scope of “letting our guard down” even though the coronavirus peak has passed in India and Covid may “almost end by February”, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “experts have said cases will spike again if precautions are not followed”.
The analysis, which was released to a preprint health sciences server in September, is also due to be published in the British Medical Journal, as per a report in the New Indian Express.
The ICMR director-general added that discussions are also underway on recent findings of solidarity trial of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the lack of efficacy of drugs such as redeliver and hydroxychloroquine in treating Covid patients.