Geneve, Switzerland 2020.
The history of medicine is saturated with examples of drugs that have worked in the lab but have not acted on a living human body or were actually harmful. World Health Organization President Dr. Tedros has urged individuals and countries to refrain from using therapies that have not been shown to be effective in treating COVID-19.
The possibility of using reconvalescent blood plasma as a potential drug for COVID-19 infected patients is being explored. Namely, patients who have recovered from COVID-19 in the blood have antibodies that can be effective against infection. These antibodies in blood plasma can be administered to COVID-19 patients to stimulate the host immune system in its own response.Cloned antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients showed impressive ability to neutralize SARS-CoV-2, a cell-borne virus, and reduced the percentage of live cell-binding virus by almost 100%
Early clinical trials in China on 10 patients showed a “significant improvement” within 1 to 3 days after receiving blood plasma transfusions, with 2 of 3 patients discarded from mechanical ventilation shortly after transfusion. Chinese experts have based their knowledge on limited success in treating other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS.
A patient who is recovering with a previously confirmed laboratory diagnosis of COVID19 can donate blood plasma only 2 weeks after the symptoms have resolved, and only if he is then tested with a negative result for COVID-19. Blood donation thus donated is given to a patient with severe COVID-19 disease after undergoing other intended laboratory infusion testing.
Although a promising type of therapy, reconvalescent blood plasma is not effective for every disease, including viral diseases such as Ebola. Success in cell culture testing has yet to be demonstrated on a living human organism.