Convalescent Plasma Trial in COVID -19 Patients

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and has developed into a pandemic with serious global public health and economic sequelae. As of March 30, 2020, over 750,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide leading to over 34,000 deaths (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). There is no current vaccine available, but there have been a number of reports of medication such as hydroxychloroquine having antiviral properties with efficacy against SARS-CoV-2.

Plasma therapy using convalescent plasma has been shown to be effective in severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola virus infection and in H1N1 influenza. More recently there has been a report of the use of convalescent plasma in the treatment of 5 ventilated COVID-19 patients with the suggestion of expedited recovery as the patients improved 1 week after the transfusion. However, this was not a clinical trial and the patients were on other antiviral medication; therefore, there is a need to undertake such a trial to see if deploying plasma with SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody has utility in managing patients infected with COVID-19 in respiratory distress.

The objective of this pilot study is to compare plasma therapy using convalescent plasma with antibody against SARS-CoV-2 to usual supportive therapy in COVID-19 patients with pneumonia and hypoxia, and to determine if the clinical course is improved. The difference between groups will allow an effect size to be determined for a definitive clinical trial

Could using convalescent plasma transfusion, from recovered COVID19 patients with antibody against COVID-19 be beneficial in treatment of COVID19 patients with hypoxia and pneumonia, in order to avoid or delay the need for invasive ventilation?

This is a prospective, interventional and randomized open label trial involving 40 patients with COVID-19 who are in respiratory distress, with the criteria that all require oxygen therapy and have radiological evidence of pneumonia, 20 of whom will receive a single transfusion of convalescent patient plasma plus routine care, compared to 20 COVID-19 patients who will receive routine care alone.

Inclusion criteria

• COVID-19 diagnosis
• Hypoxia, (Oxygen saturation of less than or equal 92% or PO2 < 60mmHg on arterial blood gas analysis) and patient requiring oxygen therapy
• Evidence of infiltrates on Chest Xray or CT scan
• Able to give informed consent
• Patients between the ages of 21 and above with no upper age.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with mild disease not requiring oxygen therapy
• Patients with normal CXR & CT scan
• Patients requiring ventilatory support
• Patients with a history of allergy to plasma, sodium citrate or methylene blue
• Patients with a history of autoimmune disease or selective IGA deficiency.