Treatment using antibodies from the blood plasma of recovered swine flu patients can more than halve the mortality rate for those who suffer severe complications from the deadly disease, Hong Kong researchers have found.
The death rate among patients given the plasma treatment during a research project that began in August last year was 20 per cent - against almost 55 per cent for those not given it.
Results of the University of Hong Kong microbiology research team's project appear in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases today.
In the HK$3 million project, the university's microbiology department and the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service collected plasma from recovered swine flu patients in the city. The team then conducted research on 93 adult patients with severe swine flu infections admitted to intensive care units at public hospitals from September 2009 to June last year. Most of these patients were admitted to the units three days after developing flu symptoms.
Of them, 20 were given the plasma collected from recovered patients, known as 'convalescent plasma', while the rest did not receive any.
Both groups had taken the anti-viral medicine Tamiflu but did not respond well to the medicine.
The university's head of microbiology, Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a member of the research team, said the mortality rate was 20 per cent for the 20 patients who received the plasma. This compares to the much higher 54.8 per cent for the 73 patients in the non-treatment group.