More than 33 million people in the world have caught COVID-19 and almost a million have died. But about 23 million of people have survived and recovered. Some people fight off the virus on their own just fine with mild symptoms while others get very sick and some of them die. Around the globe there are millions of people who have recovered and maybe those people who have survived can help the ones that are sick.
This magical procedure is called blood plasma transfusion or convalescent plasma transfusion aka SHARING IMMUNITY. Sounds unreal, right?
How does blood plasma transfusion work?
Here how it goes, you would take somebody who have survived coronavirus and then you would use their body as a resource, and take their blood. Then you would have to filter out the blood plasma from the red blood cells and the white blood cells and you would take that plasma and you would put it into, literally into, the patient who has coronavirus and maybe we can save that patient.
So, what is plasma?
Blood contains off red blood cells, white blood cells and blood plasma. Red and white blood cells are the living cells in the blood. So, plasma is the part that doesn’t consist of any living cells, however, it contains the most important part of the blood; the antibodies.
So, what are antibodies?
When you are exposed to a new virus, your immune system creates proteins called antibodies. It’s like your body makes its own drug to fight the virus. Antibodies protect you from the infection. It’s like a superpower you have that might also be transferred on to people who are sick.
Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Blood Plasma Trials:
You’re probably thinking why you haven’t heard of this before or even if it has been used as a treatment for other diseases. Yes, it has been and it worked.
Blood plasma transfusion is a century old procedure that was first used in the 1890s in diphtheria patients. Then it was used in 1918 in the influenza epidemic. Even during that time it was known that people who recover from infectious diseases created antibodies. The first Nobel prize in 1901 was given to Emil Adolf von Behring for this discovery; that you could transfer immunity by transferring serum. It was then used in Spanish flu, MERS and SARS, which are types of coronaviruses. So, it’s been already used on other coronaviruses and it worked.
One of the benefits of this treatment is it’s immediacy; you can find out really quick if it works or not. Once the transfusion is deployed, you will know if it’s working in 2-3 weeks. One of the challenges of this treatment is that antibodies work best early in the course of disease. This is very challenging because it is hard to spot when is early. Some people start showing symptoms in the early courses of the disease, but some don’t even show symptoms. Often the patients have a viral count that is growing before the symptoms show.
FDA has given emergency approval to both start investigating blood plasma transfusions with clinical trials and scientific protocol and also they gave approval for personal use. It started being used all around the world on Covid-19 patients.
I think this is a very profound thing; that you could share your immunity and save someone else. During a pandemic where all of us are required to social distance from each other, I believe this treatment is very magical and it gives hope to people who are fighting the virus.
If you have recovered from Covid-19 and want to donate plasma, you can contact the Canadian Blood Services to save a life: https://www.blood.ca/en/plasma/donating-plasma/covid-19-and-convalescent-plasma