Paris: Covid care using plasma taken from the blood of restored coronavirus patients should not be given to people with minor or moderate disease, said the World Health Organization Tuesday.
The recovery plasma showed several initial promises when given intravenously illness with Covid-19.
But in the suggestions published in the British Medical Journal, which now says that “current evidence shows that it does not increase survival or reduce mechanical ventilation needs, and it is expensive and time consuming to manage”.
It makes “strong recommendations” on the use of blood plasma in people who do not have serious Covid-19 symptoms and say that even for patients with severe and critical illness, treatment can only be given as part of the clinical trial.
Plasma Recovery is a liquid part of the blood of restored covid patients containing antibodies produced by the body after being infected.
It is one of the potential care arrangements investigated at the beginning of the pandemic, but has shown limited benefits in clinical trials.
WHO said the latest recommendations were based on evidence from 16 experiments involving 16,236 patients with Covid-19 infection which were not severe, heavy, and critical.