Evidence COVID Survivors’ Blood May Help Very Ill

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As of the end of March, three of the patients have been discharged from the hospital, the Chinese authors said, and the other two are now in stable condition.


First U.S. patients being treated

Use of convalescent serum “is a good idea. It’s something that’s been used before, and we know how to do it,” said Dr. Gregory Poland, who heads the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

That’s not to say doctors can just start doing it. “You still have to go through the FDA,” Poland said, referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Now, Houston Methodist hospital in Texas announced that it has “received FDA approval Saturday to become the first academic medical center in the nation to transfuse donated plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient into a critically ill patient.”

The transfusion occurred Saturday evening, the hospital said in a news release.

The treatment is also being planned for use by doctors elsewhere. In New York City earlier this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo said that recruitment will soon begin for plasma donations from COVID-19 survivors, and initially would focus on the New York City suburb of New Rochelle, N.Y., which has been hit hard by the outbreak.

Also, New York hospital system Mount Sinai, in collaboration with the state’s Blood Center and Department of Health, said trials in the technique could begin as early as the beginning of April.

Doctors’ experience with the general approach is not limited to viral pandemics, Poland pointed out. They routinely use injections of immune globulin — purified antibody preparations taken from donated human blood — to treat certain medical conditions.

In addition, modern blood-banking techniques, which screen for infectious agents, should ensure any such tactic against COVID-19 would be as safe as a standard blood transfusion, Poland said.


Maintaining safety

Standard protocols will be needed, including logistic matters like coordination among local doctors, blood banks and hospitals, according to Casadevall.

“We’ll have to put protocols in place to make sure that the use of this sera [blood] is safe,” Casadevall said. But, he added, “we’re not talking about research and development — this is something that physicians, blood banks, and hospitals already know how to do and can do today.”



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