Effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19 patients infected with variants of concerns

COVID-19 cases in Indonesia seemed to be increasing by each passing day at the time of writing this review, more positive cases discovered than the recovered ones. With the highest rank within all ASEAN countries, and also a home of many variants of COVID-19, Indonesia had become a break off destination to others. Along with the problem associated with the pandemic, which all people had to face, the purpose of this review is to elaborate the use of convalescent plasma therapy on treatment against COVID-19, especially its different variants. We overview the evidence that we obtained from several databases using specific keywords. A large amount of evidence points out that the convalescent plasma therapy has shown a promising outcome against COVID-19 infection, as it did for infectious diseases. Although in COVID-19 variants of concern, convalescent plasma therapy showed a reduction in neutralization ~ 3-fold against P.1, and 7-13 folds against B.1.351 variant, it still can be used as a treatment for COVID-19 and its variants. Abbreviations: PPE - personal protective equipment; VoC - Variants of concern; VoI - Variants of interest; CPT - convalescent plasma therapy; RBD - receptor-binding domain; ARDS - Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome; ICU - Intensive Care Unit; IQR - Interquartile Range; RCT - Randomized Clinical Trial; RT-PCR - Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction; NAbs - neutralizing antibodies Key words: Convalescent plasma therapy; COVID-19, Variants of Concern Citation: Kurniawati EM, Putri IS, Widiatmaja DM, Praba VM, Visuddho 2, Prameswari FU, Zahrani M, Putra FN, Nugraha D, Widiastara AA. Effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19 patients infected with variants of concerns. Anaesth. pain intensive care 2022;26(4):535-545; DOI: 10.35975/apic.v26i4.1962 Received: July 31, 2021; Reviewed: May 17, 2022; Accepted: May 18, 2022