Scientists await govt approval on new Covid treatment
Dr Bruce Kirenga is leading the team of scientists. PHOTO | COURTESY
A team of Ugandan scientists who are collecting blood from recovered Covid-19 patients for treating new cases have said they are waiting for government approval to roll out the treatment.
People who have recovered from Covid-19 have antibodies and proteins the body uses to fight off infections in their blood. The blood from people who have recovered is called convalescent plasma (CP). Plasma is the liquid portion of the blood.
Dr Bruce Kirenga, who is leading the team of scientists developing the CP therapy, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the method is safe and he is confident it will pass the government tests.
“So far 55 recovered Covid-19 patients have donated their blood. We have processed the plasma and very soon we will start using it for treatment,” Dr Kirenga, who is also the director of Makerere Lung Institute, said.
“We are still waiting for NDA (National Drug Authority) approval, we now have 55 doses ready to start the treatment,” he added.
Dr David Nahamya, the secretary for NDA, said he was still verifying whether the convalescent plasma product had been received by their experts for assessment. He had not got back to us by press time.
The project is an initiative of Makerere University in collaboration with Uganda People’s Defence Forces Medical Services, Mulago National Referral Hospital, Joint Clinical Research Centre and National Blood Transfusion Services.
Last month, Dr Kirenga said the project has four work packages (WP), which are planned to be implemented in four months.
The WP-1 will involve plasma donation, processing and storage, WP2 involves CP therapy trial, WP3 involves monoclonal antibodies manufacturing and WP4 involves survivor registry.
“The overall objective of the WP1 is to assess the feasibility of collecting, processing and storage of Covid-19 CP for future investigative assessment of the efficacy of treating patients with Covid-19,” he said.
With no efficacious drug for Covid-19 still approved world over, many people are questioning whether the therapy could be effective.
According to a recent study conducted by American researchers at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, and published in May on MedRxiv public preprint server, the therapy has shown some evidence of fastening recovery of Covid-19 patients and preventing deaths.
The study compared the results of 39 Covid-19 patients who received transfusions to another 39 who did not.
The study found that the disease worsened in 24 per cent of patients who didn’t receive plasma compared to 18 per cent of those who got, according to the report titled ‘Convalescent plasma treatment of severe Covid-19: A matched control study.’
After 16 days, the researchers said 24 per cent of those not receiving plasma had died, compared with 13 per cent of those who were being treated with Covalence plasma.
At least 72 per cent of the plasma recipients were discharged compared with 67 per cent of the control group.
