ISLAMABAD – Pakistan aims to become the first country to complete immunoglobulin (IG) therapy research needed to treat coronavirus.
‘Severe’ patients who had received the product had a 100 percent recovery rate says Scientists at Karachi’s Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS).
The therapy uses immunoglobulin (IG), a blood product extracted from the plasma of people who have recovered from infection, and which is rich in the antibodies that target the virus.
The scientists say the continuous infusion of immunoglobulin can neutralise the infection in patients and shorten the course of the disease.
In June, DUHS started a trial of the therapy on 30 participants, most from the high-risk group of people above the age of 60, with many suffering from diabetes, hypertension and other comorbidities.
Dr. Shaukat Ali, head of biotechnology at DUHS said, “The trials are very encouraging and remarkable.”
“At the moment, what we have seen is that all severe patients who received C-IVIG treatment had 100 percent recovery ratio while in critical patients the recovery ratio was 50 to 60 percent.”
Besides the high recovery rate, the team observed that therapy significantly reduced the period of hospitalisation, said, Ali.
“The results show that the number of hospitalisation days was reduced to six and a half days for severe patients, which is very encouraging because normally a severe patient would occupy hospital resources for 20 to 25 days.”
Ali said Pakistan was the first country to develop the immunoglobulin solution in April 2020.
Global pharmaceutical giants announced research on plasma-based treatment for COVID-19 in early April, but the projects had been delayed several times.
In Pakistan, clinical research started in June, after a series of regulatory approvals.
The trail was also registered with the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in the United States, which maintains the biggest global registry of clinical trials.
To seek more plasma donors, DUHS scientists announced the outcome of their trials on November 21, ahead of their scheduled completion in January 2021.
