Prisma Health to test blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients on those hospitalized with virus
Prisma Health is joining a national test to see if blood plasma works on severly ill coronavirus patients
(Courtesy: Prisma Health)
(Courtesy: Prisma Health)
Columbia, SC (WOLO) — Prisma Health is joining the national investigation that’s testing a possible treatment for patients severely suffering from COVID-19.
As part of the test, the health facility will take blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19, and then administer it to critically ill patients currently hospitalized with life threatening symptoms of the virus. The goal is to see how effective the blood plasma could be in treating the virus that still has no vaccine. Studies however suggest, this plasma could be effective in treating the virus.
Friday morning April 17, from 10 a.m.-2p.m., the blood connection will start collecting donations from convalescent plasma that will be turned into convalescent serum that will be go to pre-approved patients in just days of it being collected. Officials with the hospital say whole blood donations will be collected as well.
This national investigational test was put together by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It will go towards assisting COVID-19 patients who meet specific criteria that has been established by the FDA and deemed eligible for the treatment.
Hospital officials say anyone who Recovered COVID-19 patients are encouraged to donate blood plasma for this FDA-authorized that could benefit atients who may benefit from coronavirus-fighting antibodies. The donated blood plasma could be made into convalescent serum and then given to approved patients within days.
Jeffery Edenfield, MD, Medical Director, Institute for Translational Oncology Research at Prisma Health, is the project’s principal investigator and released a statement about his excitement about being able to have this treatment to offer severe or critically ill patients.
“The immune systems of recovered patients have created the antibodies needed to clear the virus from the body. These same antibodies can be collected from them in a process much like giving blood and then given to others who are still struggling with the disease,”…“We are hopeful that using the treatment will help more severely ill people recover more quickly,” said Edenfield. This investigational treatment has shown promise in outbreaks of similar viral respiratory infections.”
