Journal Article

Avoided and Avoidable Deaths with the Use of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma in Italy during the First Two Years of Pandemic

Franchini, Massimo, Casadevall, Arturo, Dragotakes, Quigly, Focosi, Daniele

2024

Overview

Italy was the first western country to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and has suffered nearly 200,000 deaths so far during the four years of the pandemic. In March 2020, Italy first deployed COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) to treat hospitalized patients. Despite this initial effort, the proportion of COVID-19 patients treated with CCP during the first two years of the pandemic (2020–2021) was very low (approximately 2% of individuals hospitalized for COVID-19). In this study, we estimated the number of actual inpatient lives saved by CCP treatment in Italy using national mortality data, and CCP mortality reduction data from meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials and real-world data. We also estimated the potential number of lives saved if CCP had been deployed to 100% of hospitalized patients or used in 15% to 75% of outpatients. According to these models, CCP usage in 2020–2021 saved between 385–1304 lives, but this number would have increased to 17,751–60,079 if 100% of inpatients had been transfused with CCP. Similarly, broader (15–75%) usage in outpatients could have prevented 21,187–190,689 hospitalizations (desaturating hospitals) and 6144–81,926 deaths. These data have important implications for convalescent plasma use in future infectious disease emergencies.

• Publisher: MDPI AG,MDPI
• Subject: absolute risk reduction (ARR) / Apheresis / Brief Report / Care and treatment / Clinical trials / COVID-19 / COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) / Estimates / Fatalities / Health aspects / Hospital patients / Hospitalization / Infectious diseases / Monoclonal antibodies / Mortality / Pandemics / Patients / Preventable deaths / Public health / relative risk reduction (RRR) / Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 / Viral infections