Posted on 04/04/2020 7:20:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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.
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. The blood component that carries the antibodies can be collected and given to newly infected patients - it is known as "convalescent plasma."
More than 275,000 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, and epidemiologists say hundreds of thousands more likely have the disease.
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.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced an "expanded access" program for convalescent plasma, coordinated by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, aimed at making it easier for hospitals across the country to collect and use plasma.
IS THERE EVIDENCE THIS WILL WORK?
"Historically, this has worked," said Dr. Jeffrey Henderson, associate professor of medicine and molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Before we had vaccines, this was used for infectious diseases like measles and diphtheria."
Convalescent plasma was also successfully used during the 1918 flu pandemic, he said.
Doctors say protocols, such as dosage, are still uncertain for COVID-19 patients, but they believe the method is worth trying, at least until an effective COVID-19 vaccine or treatment is developed.
The Mayo Clinic and other U.S. sites are conducting a clinical study. Similar trials are under way in other countries
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
withholding hydroxychloroquine and Zpack???
for less than $5 (that is a $4.75 profit),
this can be defeated IF GIVEN EARLY.
So slow. Takes 5-12 days just to get a Wuhan China virus test results. My guess is it takes 6 months to get this test results back. This centralization BS has become a bureaucracy joke of giant deadly proportions.
Give me 2 days and I could have a 200 bead hospital running, 3 hour (or less) testing, 3 treatment protocols running, and 100 at Armed guards to keep the FDA, CDC, FEDGOV, WHO away from interfering.
This has become a giant fedgov circle jerk. I am so disappointed in our cowardly country. Seems like lawyers and politicians run everything.
Plasma therapy worked very well in Chinese studies there, but they said the timing was very important in the cycle of the progression, with a short window for administering it.
Would a link be possible? I would like to read this and do not find it. Thank you.
Norski
Before Vaccines, Doctors Borrowed Antibodies from Recovered Patients to Save LivesIt's amazing that the history of convalescent plasma goes all the way back to the 1890s. It's equally amazing that the researchers at the time thought to remove the blood cells from blood leaving behind the plasma.The very first Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded in 1901 to Emil von Behring for his life-saving work developing a cure for diphtheria, a bacterial infection that was particularly fatal in children. His groundbreaking treatment, known as diphtheria antitoxin, worked by injecting sick patients with antibodies taken from animals who had recovered from the disease.
Von Behrings antitoxin wasnt a vaccine, but the earliest example of a treatment method called convalescent plasma thats being resurrected as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Convalescent plasma is blood plasma extracted from an animal or human patient who has convalesced or recovered from infection with a particular disease.
Convalescent plasma has been used throughout history when confronting an infectious disease where you have people who recover and theres no other therapy available, says Warner Greene, director of the Center for HIV Cure Research at the Gladstone Institutes. There must be something in their plasmai.e. an antibodythat helped them recover.
Convalescent plasma interacts differently with the immune system than a vaccine. When a person is treated with a vaccine, their immune system actively produces its own antibodies that will kill off any future encounters with the target pathogen. Thats called active immunity.
Convalescent plasma offers whats called passive immunity. The body doesnt create its own antibodies, but instead borrows them from another person or animal who has successfully fought off the disease. Unlike a vaccine, the protection doesnt last a lifetime, but the borrowed antibodies can greatly reduce recovery times and even be the difference-maker between life and death.
Convalescent plasma is the crudest of the immunotherapies, but it can be effective, says Greene.
Some have been demanding word from doctors in New York. Here is a report from one from a couple of days ago, when it was much easier.
New York City doctor: The things that I see in the ER are scary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnxNsKtkjI
I wish I could find it again - it was on the virus daily thread about a month ago - it was originally posted on the Chinese med study publishing site - Ill try to find it.
I found it over at The Lancet:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30141-9/fulltext
Published Feb 27.
Not the full paper...
My 72 year old chain smoking neighbor recovered from the virus..
Yes. You are reading it correctly.
2 weeks ago he was sent home to die because the hospital rant out of respirators. Chest pains were intense and he slept it off...for 5 days. 6th day the fever broke. Went back to the same stupid hospital which left him for dead and tested negative.
Now they are BEGGING him to donate plasma. I kid you not.
OK. But what about just doing the proven outpatient drug therapy - hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, zinc sulfate ?
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