PM urges further research on two treatment methods for COVID-19 patients

Treating a COVID-19 patient. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – has requested
to study two treatment methods for
COVID-19 patients proposed by , former Director of
the National Peadiatrics Hospital, to have a suitable application plan.

To contribute to reducing mortality, Liem had proposed
two treatment methods that the world has successfully applied.

The first is transfusion of convalescent plasma containing
antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 virus from recovered patients to patients at risk
of severe conditions.

This is not a new method. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many
parts of the world have applied this method and it has contributed to reducing
the mortality rate. Due to the urgent pandemic situation, the designs and
results of some previous studies are not very convincing. However, the recent
study by Libster published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine,
is remarkable, showing that plasma transfusion from recovered patients reduced
the rate of respiratory failure and mortality compared with the control group
receiving saline serum.

Two points emphasised in this study are that they
administered convalescent plasma to patients very early, within 72 hours of the
onset of symptoms, and they only use plasma with high anti-viral antibody
titers. Although the transfusion subjects were people aged 65 and more with
underlying medical conditions, none of the patients had serious adverse events.

Collecting plasma from donors is in principle the same as
collecting blood from blood donors. The method is easy to implement, and low
cost. Liem suggested the Ministry of Health direct the city’s Hematology and
Blood Transfusion Hospital and the National Institute of Hematology and Blood
Transfusion to soon establish a plasma bank with anti-viral antibodies to use
on high-risk patients.

The second is early infusing mesenchymal stem cells from the
umbilical cord for patients with respiratory failure to prevent Cytokine storm
– the leading cause of death in patients with respiratory failure. This method
has been used for respiratory failure of various causes.

With COVID-19, some studies show that stem cell transfusion
can increase the survival rate by 2.5 times compared to the group without
transfusion. Currently, Vietnam has mastered the technology to produce
mesenchymal stem cells in large quantities, which, if studied and deployed,
will be a promising method to reduce mortality./.