People who survive an infectious disease like COVID-19 are generally left with blood containing antibodies, or proteins made by the body's immune system to fight off a virus.
- U.S. hospitals desperate to help very sick patients with COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, are trying a treatment first used in the 1890s that relies on blood plasma donated by recovered patients.
To help match donors to hospitals, the AABB, formerly the American Association of Blood Banks, this week issued guidelines on plasma collection. The American Red Cross also launched an online registry for potential donors. In one trial in China, levels of the virus in five seriously ill COVID-19 patients were undetectable after plasma transfusions, according to study results published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association.The process involves drawing blood from a donor - in this case someone who has recovered from COVID-19 but is in generally good health and meets other criteria for blood donation - and running it through a machine to extract the plasma.
Centers including Houston Methodist Hospital and several hospitals in hard-hit New York City have used the experimental treatment on an emergency basis for patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19.
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