Blood Plasma Treatment to Fight Coronavirus

The FDA on Tuesday confirmed that it is expediting the use of a blood plasma treatment for patients who have become seriously ill with the coronavirus. The use of blood plasma treatment will provide another tool in order to combat the deadly virus. The blood plasma treatment involves taking blood plasma from a patient who has recovered from the coronavirus and using it on someone who suffering from the life threatening infection. Currently, New York is pursuing the treatment in clinical trials. The process, known as plasma-derived therapy or "convalescent plasma," involves doctors testing the plasma of people who recovered for antibodies to the virus and then injecting that plasma, or a derivative of it, into the sick person. The move is a "big step" forward, said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chief of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who has advocated for the plasma treatment. "It has a high likelihood of working but we won't know whether it works until its done" and enough patients have been treated, he said. "We do know based on history it has a good chance." **Trials** The new treatment protocol comes at a time when the US recorded its deadliest day since the outbreak began. More than 150 deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, were reported in the US on Tuesday. To date, at least 700 people in the US have died and more than 53,000 have tested positive for the virus. In coordination with the blood plasma treatment, states are also pursuing tests of people's blood for antibodies and immunity to coronavirus. The New York State Department of Health is also rolling out clinical test trials for anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Azithromycin. The patients who are hospitalized with moderate or severe coronavirus will be eligible to receive the treatment. A second New York University trial is exploring if Hydroxychloroquine can be used as a preventative measure to preemptively treat people who don't have the virus but are in contact with those who do, according to the NY Health Department's Institutional Review Board. **Logistics** The recruitment of donor patients will be from New Rochelle, New York, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in New York and which had the first cluster of cases in the state. More importantly, this area has a critical mass of people who have recovered. The plasma treatments will take time to get off the ground. Physicians will need to identify patients who now test negative for the disease, extract their plasma and have it tested for antibodies for Covid-19 before it can be deployed to ill patients. If there are enough antibodies in plasma it can kill the disease, experts say. For the time being, The FDA is limiting the plasma treatment to the most seriously ill patients since finding a good candidate and providing plasma could take days, even though the official said they are expediting this process to just a few days. According to New York officials, there has been an overwhelming response of people who want to donate their plasma. **History of plasma treatments** Plasma treatments have been used since the 1900s to treat infectious diseases like influenza and more recently Ebola. China has used this treatment in its Covid-19 positive patients and says it is working although US doctors have not yet seen the underlying raw data. Plasma treatment might not work if the patients are too critical. In 2009, there was a trial to treat influenza using plasma but some of the patients were already too sick for the antibodies to work. In New York, the treatment will be given to people who are already very ill, but the hope is that it will get to the point where doctors can prescribe it to patients who are diagnosed much earlier.