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Blood Plasma Reduces Risk of Severe Covid-19 if Given Early

A small but rigorous clinical trial in Argentina has found that blood plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients can keep older adults from getting seriously sick with the coronavirus — if they get the therapy within days of the onset of the illness.

The results, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, are some of the first to conclusively point toward the oft-discussed treatment’s beneficial effects. They arrive nearly five months after the Food and Drug Administration, under pressure from President Trump, issued the therapy an emergency green light for use in people hospitalized with Covid-19.

Thousands of patients have received infusions of plasma in the…

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Featured

  The Fight Is In Us

COVID-19 survivors: you’ve got a lot of fight in you. Because your immune system fought off COVID-19, you now have antibodies in you that could help others fight it off too. Please donate your COVID-19 plasma today.

  Convalescent Plasma Strikes Out As COVID-19 Treatment

"The straw that broke the camel's back was two very large cohort trials," she says. The RECOVERY Trial in the United Kingdom had studied more than 10,000 volunteers and found no benefit. Another one called CONCOR-1, run by Canadians, had studied nearly 1,000 patients. It, too, stopped recruiting new patients because doing so would have been futile. But those studies focused on people sick enough to be in the hospital.

  Convalescent Plasma therapy

One trend that seems to be emerging from the data we do have is that, similarly to a lot of antiviral drugs, earlier administration of the treatment is more likely to be of benefit.

 Can antibodies from people with covid-19 bridge the gap to a vaccine?

FOR people who have survived covid-19, there is an opportunity to add another chapter to their recovery story: they could help save other people’s lives by donating blood.

 I Have Covid-19 Antibodies. Finally I Know How to Help.

But being a survivor means you can help. Donating plasma takes a couple of hours, and it’s no more painful than a needle stick. Your own body will replenish the plasma within a day or two, antibodies included.

 It’s in your blood: How plasma donations can help treat rare diseases and potentially Covid-19

These are difficult times. But all of us have the power to make a difference, to potentially help save lives. That power is, literally, in our blood. We can help change even more lives by raising awareness for plasma donations too.

Articles of Interest

Before Vaccines, Doctors ‘Borrowed’ Antibodies from Recovered Patients to Save Lives

Doctors first tried injecting patients with blood plasma in the early 1900s. The method has been used against diphtheria, the 1918 flu pandemic, measles and Ebola.

Blood plasma showed no benefit in Covid-19 patients in trial — a finding that could re-energize debate

Infusing hospitalized Covid-19 patients with blood plasma from people who recovered from the disease had no effect on whether patients got sicker or died, according to the first completed randomized trial of the treatments. The study, published Thursday in BMJ, could re-energize the debate over whether blood plasma is an effective treatment for the disease. An earlier analysis, run by the Mayo Clinic, showed blood plasma did yield some benefit, leading the Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency access to the therapy in August. That research, however, did not have a control arm.

RECOVERY trial closes recruitment to convalescent plasma treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19

Convalescent plasma has been widely used as a treatment for COVID-19 but to date there has been no convincing evidence of the effect of convalescent plasma on clinical outcomes in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

A Little Debate on Plasma Is Healthy for Science

The FDA says it’s likely effective, while NIH urges caution. The answer: Get more data from trials.

All the pros—and cons—of convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19

The treatment has been around for about a century, and hasn’t really gotten any better with age.

America Needs Plasma From COVID-19 Survivors Now

People who have recovered from the disease have antibodies that might help those still suffering from it.

An Act of Love and Desperation

Chloe Le got a mild case of COVID-19. Her husband, Ted, ended up in the ICU. Chloe spent weeks in a race against a bottlenecked system, trying to donate her plasma to Ted and hopefully save his life.

Antibodies in the blood of COVID-19 survivors know how to beat coronavirus – and researchers are already testing new treatments that harness them

Researchers are launching trials now that involve the transfusion of blood components from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to those who are sick or at high risk. Called “convalescent-plasma therapy,” this technique can work even without doctors knowing exactly what component of the blood may be beneficial. For the pioneering work of the first treatment using therapeutic serum in 1891 (against diphtheria), Emil von Behring later earned the Nobel Prize in medicine. Anecdotal reporting of the therapy dates back as far as the devastating 1918-19 influenza pandemic, although scientists lack definitive evidence of its benefits during that global health crisis.

Blood Plasma Provides Possible Therapy for Covid-19 Patients

Convalescent plasma has shown enough promise against COVID-19 that hundreds of hospitals around the country have put it to use. While still considered an experimental treatment, patients are receiving convalescent plasma through clinical trials and by way of compassionate use, which the Food and Drug Administration expanded access to earlier this year.

Convalescent Plasma Is Safe to Treat Covid-19, National Study Shows

First large-scale analysis of patients receiving experimental treatment for coronavirus is expected to lead to more trials to test effectiveness of therapy

Convalescent Plasma: Therapeutic Hope or Hopeless Strategy in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Convalescent plasma collected from recovered patients has been a therapeutic modality employed for over a hundred years for various infectious pathogens. Specifically, it has been used in the treatment of many viral infections with varying degrees of clinical efficacy. As we consider the use of convalescent plasma in the battle against this new strain of coronavirus, it is prudent to review what is known from past experiences.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Donating COVID-19 Antibodies

If you've recovered from the coronavirus, your plasma might be useful to other people.

Is convalescent plasma safe and effective? We answer the major questions about the Covid-19 treatment

Scientists outside government have cast the convalescent plasma debate as a case study in pandemic-era science — and how the urgency of treating Covid-19 balances against the need for caution and due diligence in developing new medical treatments.

Science Behind Convalescent Plasma for Covid-19 Is Clouded by Politics in FDA Authorization

Plasma transfusions, at higher antibody concentrations, appear to offer a survival advantage for some patients—and FDA decision will make access easier.

Wanted in Covid-19 Fight: ‘Superdonors’ of Convalescent Plasma

Blood banks and researchers are mobilizing to find recovered Covid-19 patients who have high levels of antibodies and are willing to donate regularly.

What is plasma therapy?

Many options are being explored to treat COVID-19. These include new drugs specifically designed to target SARS-CoV-2, as well as “repurposed” drugs - that is, existing drugs designed to treat a different disease. By far the oldest treatment being tested, though, is convalescent plasma.

Resources

Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association

The Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA) represents the private sector manufacturers of plasma-derived and recombinant analog therapies, collectively known as plasma protein therapies and the collectors of source plasma used for fractionation. These therapies are used by small patient populations worldwide to treat a variety of rare diseases and serious medical conditions.