In a federally funded study that enrolled more than 500 patients from U.S. hospital emergency departments, administering COVID-19 convalescent plasma to high-risk COVID-19 outpatients with early symptoms did not prevent disease progression, according to final results reported yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the clinical trial was halted in February after an independent board concluded that the treatment was unlikely to help such patients. 

“We were hoping that the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma would achieve at least a 10% reduction in disease progression in this group, but instead the reduction we observed was less than 2%,” said Clifton Callaway, M.D., principal investigator and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
 

Related News Articles

Headline
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will update its immunization schedules for the COVID-19 and chickenpox vaccines to adopt recent recommendations…
Headline
The Food and Drug Administration today issued a request for public comment on a series of questions regarding current approaches to evaluating artificial…
Headline
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday announced that Olympus issued a global recall of its ViziShot 2 FLEX needles manufactured prior to May 12 following…
Headline
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Sept. 19 recommended that patients should consult their health care provider if they want to receive a COVID-…
Headline
The Department of Health and Human Services Sept. 18 announced it will take new actions to help improve care for individuals with long COVID. They include a…
Headline
The Food and Drug Administration has identified a Class I recall for Mo-Vis BVBA R-net Joysticks due to a firmware error that causes the wheelchair to ignore…