Effectiveness and safety of convalescent plasma transfusion in the treatment of people with COVID-19

Evidence summary

Abstract

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread globally and caused massive loss of life and economic crisis. The disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a highly transmissible coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China (WHO 2020). 

Research question: What is the best available evidence regarding the effectiveness and safety of convalescent plasma transfusion (CPT) in the treatment of people with COVID-19?

How this Evidence Summary was prepared? The methods used to prepare in this rapid evidence review was adopted from the JBI Evidence summary:

https://wiki.joannabriggs.org/display/JSW/Updating+Evidence+Summaries

Evidence summaries are defined as synopsis that summarizes existing international evidence on healthcare interventions or activities. These summaries are based on structured searches of the literature and selected evidence-based healthcare databases (JBI Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Epistemonikos). Following the search, all studies are assessed for internal validity using an abridged set of critical appraisal tools.

Conclusion: It is difficult to definitively conclude whether convalescent plasma is or is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 at this time because of two reasons: no studies that specifically assess its effectiveness in COVID-19 and available studies provide evidence of very low certainty. (Grade B)

There are very little direct evidence on treatment of COVID-19 with CP but indirect pieces of evidence related to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV are available, i.e direct inference cannot be made on convalescent plasma effectiveness in treating COVID-19