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A major study has found that convalescent plasma does not reduce the risk of intubation or death for COVID-19 patients. However, the study also revealed that the antibody profile in the blood of people who have had the virus is extremely variable and this may modify the response to the treatment. "It has been thought that the blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors would help those seriously ill from the virus but, unfortunately, it does not," said Donald Arnold, co-principal investigator of the study, hematologist and professor of medicine at McMaster University. "We are cautioning against using convalescent plasma to treat...

Question for all FReepers, especially those with a medical background:Why are people continuing to die from (or more likely WITH) Covid when there are therapeutics available? PDJT had it, got over it, and credited a drug called Regeneron with his recovery, calling it nothing short of a 'cure'.Yet we continue to wring are hands over the availability of a 'vaccine' that may or may not be effective.Ok, I know the politics behind this -- if Trump says positive things about it, the 'Rats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- immediately pooh-pooh it. IMO, any politician who withholds...

Convalescent plasma generated great enthusiasm in the earliest days of the coronavirus disease The PLACID Trial was a rigorous randomized controlled study on a topic of enormous global importance In prespecified, intention-to-treat analyses, the PLACID Trial investigators found no net benefit associated with convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with moderate covid-19 there was no net clinical benefit to patients

The World Health Organization on Monday warned that the use of plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a treatment for the coronavirus remains experimental despite the White House's authorization of it Sunday. "The results are not conclusive" on the treatment's effectiveness, the WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said in a press briefing, according to The Associated Press. The same treatment has been used historically for flu and measles outbreaks and the Ebola outbreak that hit several west African nations. President Trump, announcing the emergency authorization Sunday, described the treatment as a "breakthrough." Swaminathan said the treatment remains experimental, and that,...

“Blood from people who recover from coronavirus could provide a treatment,” reported the Washington Post on March 27, just a couple weeks after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Just over a week later, the Washington Post reported again that while there was no vaccine yet for COVID-19, “we do have one potentially promising treatment to help people infected with the coronavirus: infusions of antibody-rich plasma from other patients who have had the disease and recovered.”A couple months later, the Washington Post again touted the potential of blood plasma, also called convalescent plasma, in treating the virus. “A...

The White House is touting a “breakthrough” on a coronavirus therapeutic that President Trump will announce in a news conference Sunday evening. “News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany posted on Twitter late Saturday night. Trump will make the announcement alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and the director of the Food and Drug Administration Stephen Hahn.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After expressing frustration at the slow pace of approval for coronavirus treatments, President Donald Trump was set to announce on Sunday the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 patients. The announcement will come after days of White House officials suggesting there were politically motivated delays by the Food and Drug Administration in approving a vaccine and therapeutics for the disease that has upended Trump’s reelection chances. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump was set to issue the emergency order — which would make it easier for some patients to obtain the treatment —...

At 5:30 PM the President will speak to the Nation about a potential breakthrough treatment for the China Virus

F.D.A.’s Emergency Approval of Blood Plasma Is Now on HoldGovernment health leaders including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci urged caution last week, citing weak data from the country’s largest plasma study. WASHINGTON — Last week, just as the Food and Drug Administration was preparing to issue an emergency authorization for blood plasma as a Covid-19 treatment, a group of top federal health officials including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci intervened, arguing that emerging data on the treatment was too weak, according to two senior administration officials. The authorization is on hold for...

Some hopeful news. One Israeli company has created a treatment for the Wuhan Coronavirus that has thus far proved to be 100 percent effective in treating the virus. According to the Jerusalem Post, the company Pluristem created a placenta-based cell-therapy that has not only helped patients survive but also improve respiratory parameters to boot. These patients were in dire straights while being tested with organ failures across the board....

@GStephanopoulos announces he has signed up for a clinical trial to donate blood plasma and potentially help COVID-19 patients. ABC Good Morning America Twitter

The head of the Food and Drug Administration said he is hopeful about finding a treatment for coronavirus after federal health officials approved two treatments for emergency use. Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, spoke Saturday during the White House coronavirus task force press briefing. He highlighted a program that uses convalescent plasma as a way to treat COVID-19 patients. The program collects blood plasma from people who have recovered from the novel coronavirus and transfers the immunoglobulins - antibodies produced by white blood cells and offer immunity - to help patients recover more rapidly....

Hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, remdesivir. Lots of drugs are getting attention as potential treatments. Could they work? Could they be dangerous? “Currently, there’s no FDA approved drug for COVID-19,” says Dr. Nitin Bhanot, an infectious diseases specialist at AHN. Hydroxychloroquine, brand-name Plaquenil, is an old drug used to prevent malaria. Also, people with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis take it to reduce inflammation. It could possibly work because the drug attaches to and blocks a cell protein the coronavirus uses to get into the cell. And it changes the chemistry inside the cell making it harder for the virus to make copies of...

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...

A Moorestown man is on a ventilator in Cooper ICU. His family is searching for a potential plasma donor. MOORESTOWN, NJ — A Moorestown family is seeking help for a man who is currently hospitalized on a ventilator in the Cooper Hospital ICU with new coronavirus. John Pratsinakis is fighting for his life against the virus, his daughter said on Monday. She is asking if anyone who has already fully recovered from their battle with the virus might be a potential blood donor. “We don’t know where this journey will lead us, but we must be prepared,” said Katerina Pratsinakis,...

The FDA said on Tuesday it has developed guidelines to take plasma from coronavirus survivors to treat patients who are critically ill from the virus. The FDA said on Tuesday that It is possible that convalescent plasma contains antibodies to the coronavirus and might be effective against the infection. The FDA said that although the announcement is promising, convalescent plasma has not been shown to be effective in every disease studied. The FDA is not approving using plasma as a treatment, instead using it as a clinical trial and for the treatment of those who are critically ill. "Given the...

Hoping to stem the toll of the state’s surging coronavirus outbreak, New York health officials plan to begin collecting plasma from people who have recovered and injecting the antibody-rich fluid into patients still fighting the virus. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the plans during a news briefing Monday. The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, dates back centuries and was used during the flu epidemic of 1918 — in an era before modern vaccines and antiviral drugs, NBC News reports. Some experts say the treatment, although somewhat primitive, might be the best hope for combating the coronavirus until more sophisticated therapies can...

Hoping to stem the toll of the state’s surging coronavirus outbreak, New York health officials plan to begin collecting plasma from people who have recovered and injecting the antibody-rich fluid into patients still fighting the virus. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the plans during a news briefing Monday. The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, dates back centuries and was used during the flu epidemic of 1918 — in an era before modern vaccines and antiviral drugs. Some experts say the treatment, although somewhat primitive, might be the best hope for combating the coronavirus until more sophisticated therapies can be developed, which...

When it comes to creating treatments for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the first line of defense may be a century-old technology: purified blood plasma. Medical literature published during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 includes case reports describing how transfusions of blood products obtained from survivors may have contributed to a 50% reduction in death among severely ill patients. In 1934, a measles outbreak at a Pennsylvania boarding school was halted when serum harvested from the first infected student was used to treat 62 fellow students. Only three of the 62 students developed measles — all...