Emergence of ancient convalescent plasma (CP) therapy: To manage COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Since December 2019, the human populations of the 195 global countries continue experiencing grave health and life threats due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the novelty of the pathogen, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), at present there is lack of preventive as well as therapeutic options for treating and managing the infection. The use of ancient immunotherapeutic technique - the convalescent plasma (CP) therapy, may act as an immediate and available option to control the COVID-19 pandemic. This review provides a concept and understanding on the CP therapy, its potential to control SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The CP therapy might act as an immediate saviour for society from the virus. Although the CP therapy has exert affirmative result against COVID-19 it has not been recommended for long time use in COVID-19 and this review gives support for its possible application.

Keywords: Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE); Convalescent plasma (CP) therapy; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Passive immune therapy; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Fig. 1

Outline of convalescent plasma (CP) therapy against COVID-19 disease.

Fig. 2

Schematic presentation of SARS-COV-2 infection through antibody-dependent enhancement.