2021 News
FDA Authorizes Use of Outpatient COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma in Immunosuppressed Patients
December 28, 2021
On December 28th , the FDA authorized, for the first time, outpatient use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma, a key goal of CCPP19.
While the authorization is only for “patients with immunosuppressive disease or receiving immunosuppressive treatment”, it allows physicians to treat their patients with COVID who have difficulty forming antibodies to the SARS CoV-2 virus to receive convalescent plasma at a time when it will be most likely to help them, and not have to wait for hospitalization, by which time the window of convalescent plasma effectiveness might have closed.
The announcement letter can be found here with the key paragraphs on pages 2 and 3 highlighted.
Johns Hopkins Trial in Out-Patients Shows that Convalescent Plasma can Lower Hospitalizations by 54%
December 21, 2021
Johns Hopkins Trial in Out-Patients Shows that Convalescent Plasma can Lower Hospitalizations by 54%.
Please Reevaluate the Data on Convalescent Plasma for COVID-19
"Early administration with high antibodies may offer hope to some patients."
Letters from others to NEJM about the SIREN-C3PO Trial (Korley et al) can be found here.
UBI Cofounder Aviva Klein Receives Diana Award for CCP Donor Recruitment Leadership
"Aviva Klein was recently named a 2021 recipient of the Diana Award, which honors young people for social action and humanitarian efforts. Klein received the award for her advocacy to increase and improve the supply of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic."
Top Ten Projects in Health
"What started with an academic paper quickly transformed into a virtual effort to collaborate, explore and accelerate the development of a possible treatment for those afflicted by the coronavirus."
A Victory for Scientific Pragmatism
"In an emergency, the “gold” standard of evidence may not be the wise one."
For early testing of convalescent plasma, we were ‘building the plane while we were flying it’
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, clinicians have seen many remarkable things. Among them is how a 19th-century therapy called convalescent plasma came to be used in more than 500,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients the United States and elsewhere. Because we’ve had front-row seats on this journey, we’d like to offer answers to two key questions: How did this happen? Is it safe and does it work? ”
Convalescent plasma: a quality COVID treatment unnecessarily mired in controversy | COMMENTARY
“Fortunately, we have convalescent plasma available, which could take a bite out of COVID-19 by saving lives and protecting our health care system from collapse. ”