Researchers want plasma donations from people who’ve recovered from COVID-19 in the hope that it might help others still seriously ill with the disease.
The convalescent plasma therapy project is being sponsored nationwide by the Mayo Clinic. It’s currently underway in the D.C. area at MedStar Health.
“It’s actually incredibly gratifying to be a part of this now,” said Dr. Arathi Shenoy, a hematologist/oncologist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.
Shenoy is the principal investigator in the local study.
“What would be even more gratifying is to shake the hand of somebody who gets better because of this treatment.”
Using plasma from the blood of recovered patients has been deployed to treat other viral epidemics.
But research trying it on people who are seriously ill from COVID-19 is just getting underway because donors need to have recovered from their infections.
Twenty-eight days need to have passed since they first tested positive and they need to have been symptom free for at least 28 days as well.
So how’s this supposed to work?
“Plasma is the liquid portion of the blood and it contains antibodies and those antibodies are immune proteins,” Shenoy said.
“What we believe is that the immune proteins will first of all go to the virus and neutralize it, or act as kind of a tag to the virus and harness the rest of the immune system to come fight the infection.”
It’s unclear whether or how well the therapy might work with COVID-19 patients, but Shenoy said it’s very gratifying to be able to give them an option.
“Because it’s something we can offer them that we weren’t even able to offer them four weeks ago.”
Recovered COVID-19 patients who are interested in learning more or who are considering a plasma donation can call researchers at 202-877-6290.
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