Healed people's blood plasma can treat covid patients

The COVID-19 outbreak has claimed more than 2,000 lives and caused around 75,000 cases globally. Until now, experts are still researching what drugs are effective against this virus called SARS-CoV-2. However, it turns out that researchers have found a new way to help fight the virus, where the blood of recovered patients can treat COVID-19.

Is it true that this treatment option is effective against the COVID-19 virus infection?

Is blood plasma that can treat covid-19 effective?

Reporting from the Live Science page, Thursday (13/2) officials from the health department in China asked patients who recovered from COVID-19 to donate their blood plasma.

The officials argue that the blood plasma in recovered patients contains a protein that can help fight the COVID-19 virus. In fact, this method is believed to reduce inflammation in infected patients for 12-24 hours.

COVID-19 Outbreak updates Country: IndonesiaData

1,012,350

Confirmed

820,356

Recovered

28,468

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This is because patients who have just recovered from this disease may have antibodies to the COVID-19 virus and circulate in the blood. Thus, Chinese officials put forward in theory that injecting antibodies into a patient who is still sick can help fight infection.

Why is that?

Antibodies are proteins that the immune system makes to remove viruses, bacteria, and other foreign substances from your body. Generally, antibodies are created according to foreign substances in the body.

However, the body needs time for the number of antibodies to be sufficient to fight and prevent viral infection. When the same virus or bacteria tries to attack again, the body will remember and create antibodies in a fast enough time to fight them.

In essence, this treatment will try to send the patient's recovered immune cells to those who are still sick. Patients who can receive this blood plasma are those in emergency and critical conditions.

Trials of donating blood plasma to sick patients have been carried out. Reporting from Medical Xpress, eleven hospital patients in Wuhan had received blood plasma infusions last week.

As a result, two of these patients showed progress. The first patient was able to leave the hospital and the other was able to walk and get out of bed.

Therefore, until now experts are testing the blood plasma of patients who have recovered to help treat COVID-19.

Is it safe to transfer blood plasma to infected patients?

The new findings from Chinese experts about recovered patient blood plasma to help treat COVID-19 are good news and quite important. However, WHO warns that transfer of blood plasma to infected patients must be carried out safely.

The fact that blood plasma can help fight COVID-19 infection is not new. In some cases, such as the flu epidemic, plasma has been shown to be effective in saving lives when fighting certain diseases.

However, maybe some of you are wondering, is it safe to donate the blood of a person who has just recovered to a patient who is infected with the virus. The reason is, when blood donation is carried out, the risk of transmission of other diseases is quite large, so safety protocols are so important.

You don't have to worry. Donors will undergo a series of tests to ensure that their blood plasma does not carry the virus.

In addition, not all donor blood will be drawn, but only their plasma. Other compounds from the blood that the patient does not need, including red blood cells and platelets will be infused back into the donor.

Therefore, Chinese officials are quite confident that the method of transferring the blood plasma of recovered people to treat patients infected with COVID-19 is quite safe.

Blood plasma donation procedures to treat COVID-19

Donating blood plasma to an infected patient to treat COVID-19 is a pretty good finding. However, there are a number of things you need to pay attention to when doing plasma donation.

Donating plasma normally takes longer than regular blood donations, which is 1-2 hours.

Then, the doctor will ask about the donor's medical history and perform physical health checks, such as blood pressure and body temperature. Then, the donor's arm is cleaned before the sterile needle is injected.

Meanwhile, the donor can sit on the sofa while the blood plasma is being collected. All the blood drawn from the veins is collected by blood plasma and the rest is returned to the donor.

After the donor process is complete, the place where the needle was injected will be covered by a bandage. Donors also need to consume snacks and drinks to recover for 10-15 minutes.

Normally, the body of a healthy adult will rapidly replace the plasma that comes out. That way, blood plasma levels will return to normal a few days after the donor is done.

Although donating blood plasma to treat patients infected with COVID-19 sounds promising, researchers are still trying to research methods of treating this virus. Are there serious side effects or not. That way, plasma donation can be done safely in patients who need it.