Convalescent plasma therapy, widely used in hospitals for treating serious coronavirus patients, has been dropped from the centre's clinical management guidelines for treating COVID-19 patients. On Monday (May 17), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) revised the clinical guidance for the management of adult COVID-19 patients and dropped the off-label use of convalescent plasma. This is a significant development at a time when the second wave of COVID-19 is raging across the country. The decision was taken based on recommendations of experts from AIIMS, ICMR-Covid-19 National Task Force and the Health Ministry. In plasma therapy, antibodies from the people who have recovered from COVID-19 are used to treat serious patients. But in a trial conducted in India recently, the therapy did not show any effect in reducing the progression to severe disease or death. As per reports, the expert panel had recommended removing the therapy from the list as they had found no significant benefit from the use of plasma in reducing the progression to severe disease or death. As per the new ICMR advisory, only Remdesivir and Tocilizumab (off-label) can be used for the treating covid-19 patients. However, the ICMR guideline continues to recommend Ivermerctin and hydroxychloroquine for mild disease but has also underlined that both drugs had “low certainty of evidence”.