Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government is supporting clinical trials of convalescent plasma therapy in treating covid-19; and what evidence he has received on the effectiveness of those treatments.

On 25 April, the Department announced that the clinical trial REMAP-CAP has been given approval to determine if plasma donated by patients who have recovered from COVID-19 can help those with the virus. NHS Blood and Transplant has started to collect convalescent plasma to supply to REMAP-CAP, with the first transfusion expected this week.

In parallel with the trial, NHS Blood and Transplant is scaling up a national programme for collecting plasma so the treatment can be widely rolled out if it is shown to be effective. The collection of plasma will be ramped up by mid-May to deliver up to 10,000 units of plasma to the National Health Service every week, enough to treat 5,000 COVID-19 patients per week.

Convalescent plasma has been used as an effective treatment for emerging infections in the past, and this step forward underpins the Department’s science-backed approach to fighting this virus.