Survivors’ blood plasma reduces severe Covid cases by 60%, study finds

Survivors’ blood plasma reduces severe covid cases by 60 per cent, a new study has found.

A TRIAL involving 160 patients in Argentina suggests that urgent transfusions of blood from donors who have recovered from the virus as soon as symptoms appear can be a cheap and safe treatment for populations at risk.

Argentine doctor Fernando Polack of the Infant Foundation, who led the study, said “This study describes the first strategy in the world to stop the progression of SARS-COV2 with an economic, universal, non-patent intervention, proven safe and that can be administered on an outpatient basis in care units without the need for hospitalisation,” said Polack.

The clinical trial included 160 elderly people from the Buenos Aires region, all suffering from Covid and with an average age of 77 years.

Researchers administered a quarter of a litre of convalescent blood plasma to half the participants and saline water to the other half.

Only nine of the plasma-treated patients ended up needing oxygen, compared to 23 in the other group.

“It’s a 60 per cent reduction in the risk of serious illness”, said Dr Polack.

The results were published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Survivor blood plasma transfusions were used against the 1918 flu pandemic, explained Dr Polack.

“It is the oldest medicine there is, it is more than a century old, but it offers us a bridge until the real solution for this – which is not plasma, but vaccines – is finally accessible to everyone.”

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