Dozens of hospitals in the United States expressed their opposition to the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19 patients, despite being authorized by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

Convalescent Plasma
Reutersconnect

The FDA has issued an Emergency Use Authorization in Aug. 23 about the use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients.

However, dozens of major hospitals in the country are considering either committing only to the clinical trial or avoiding or minimizing convalescent plasma use. They request more studies about the use of convalescent plasma to treat patients who are suffering from the virus.

Even though some patients already recovered using the treatment, health experts are still looking to identify gaps.

According to principal investigator Dr. Todd Rice, around 45 hospitals from coast to coast have already expressed their interest in collaborating for the clinical trial sponsored by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Rice said some officials in several hospitals are only committed in the clinical trials and will not maximize the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment.

The convalescent plasma has already been administered to more than 77,000 COVID-19 patients across the country. President Donald Trump has decribed convalescent plasma as a powerful treatment.

Despite the significant number of patients who recovered from the virus because of convalescent plasma use, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel cautioned this week that this should not be used as the standard care for treating COVID-19 patients.

The panel added that well-designed trials are needed to determine whether the treatment is beneficial because data so far suggest that treatment is not definitive. In reply, Rice said he doesn't have the answer yet to this scientific question.

The convalescent plasma treatment has been used on an experimental basis for more than a century to fight other virulent diseases, including the 1918 flu, measles, Ebola, SARS, and H1N1 influenza.

Rice's study on convalescent plasma has received funding worth $34 million from the NIH officials and country music superstar Dolly Parton.

Rice noted that the study's results, which is expected to be released in October, will help change COVID-19 treatment in the country. He said they are expecting 1,000 COVID-19 patients to participate in the trial.

Rice noted that half of the participants will receive convalescent plasma with high levels of disease-fighting antibodies from a stockpile of more than 150 units of the product already collected. The other half will receive a placebo solution.

Even though the trial was launched in April, the number of participants joining has been slow. The funding allows enlistment in over 50 sites nationwide.

"I'd rather frame it as not rejecting the FDA, but simply taking the longer view," said Dr. Claudia Cohn, director of the Blood Bank Laboratory at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Meanwhile, officials of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center announced that they will join the convalescent plasma's human clinical trial and will consider it the first option in treating COVID-19 patients.

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