For months investors have been lapping-up all positive vaccine and Covid-19 treatment news as if their lives depended on it.

Another dose was injected last weekend when the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the body that independently approves new drugs, cleared the use of convalescent plasma in hospital patients suffering from Covid-19.

This involves injecting antibodies from patients that have survived the virus into current hospitalised sufferers. US president Donald Trump said: ‘This is a powerful therapy.’

The president has been promoting the treatment even though there isn’t enough evidence that such treatments work and full clinical trials have yet to be completed.

Patients who were treated with plasma containing higher levels of antibodies were 35% more likely to survive than those who received plasma with lower levels. Yet it isn’t yet known if patients treated with plasma are more likely to survive than those not treated.

Meanwhile there is increasing chatter that Trump is considering fast-tracking the experimental vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca (AZN) and Oxford University. AstraZeneca’s shares jumped almost 4% to £87.70 on 24 August following media speculation about Trump’s intentions.

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