Posted on 04/03/2020 12:05:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Tiffany Pinckney remembers the fear when COVID-19 stole her breath. So when she recovered, the New York City mother became one of the country’s first survivors to donate her blood to help treat other seriously ill patients.
“It is definitely overwhelming to know that in my blood, there may be answers,” Pinckney told The Associated Press.
Doctors around the world are dusting off a century-old treatmentfor infections: Infusions of blood plasma teeming with immune molecules that helped survivors beat the new coronavirus. There’s no proof it will work. But former patients in Houston and New York were early donors, and now hospitals and blood centers are getting ready for potentially hundreds of survivors to follow.
The Food and Drug Administration Friday announced a national study, led by the Mayo Clinic, that will help hospitals offer the experimental plasma therapy and track how they fare. The American Red Cross will help collect and distribute the plasma.
“There’s a tremendous call to action,” said Dr. David Reich, president of New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, which declared Pinckney recovered and raced to collect her blood. “People feel very helpless in the face of this disease. And this is one thing that people can do to help their fellow human beings.”
As treatments get underway, “we just hope it works," he said.
What the history books call “convalescent serum” was most famously used during the 1918 flu pandemic, and also against measles, bacterial pneumonia and numerous other infections before modern medicine came along. Why? When infection strikes, the body starts making proteins called antibodies specially designed to target that germ. Those antibodies float in survivors’ blood — specifically plasma, the yellowish liquid part of blood — for months, even years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnewyork.com ...
Doctors don’t know how long survivors' antibodies against COVID-19 will persist.
But for now, “they're the safest ones on the street,” said Dr. Rebecca Haley of Bloodworks Northwest in Seattle, which is working to identify donors. "We would not be making a dent in their antibody supply for themselves."
The spread is accelerating. Yesterday’s total was 241,626. Today’s total won’t be in until later tonight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemiology
United States
Cases 265,001
Deaths 6,766
Recoveries 11,983
The Jehova Witless ain’t gonna do transfusions.
That sounds like a good idea.It’s easy to imagine that researchers at major medical schools could help them come up with a vaccine and/or treatment for the virus.
There a thousands upon thousands of recovered. Why in the hell wasn’t this done day one. Encourage plasma donations and pay for it if you have too.
The government is so slow to react, it is sickening (pun intended).
Looks like my girlfriend is cured.
.............
She looked into donating antibodies and was told she has to wait 28 days after she tests clean twice.
Got news for ya... there are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who had COVID-19 back in Jan-Feb, but weren’t diagnosed because we weren’t fully aware of it. This person is NOT the first survivor... this person is the first DOCUMENTED COVID-19 patient who survived.
LOL, I was a Marine. In my blood there will mostly be questions, not answers. This is no BS. After all the shots and whacked out meds they gave us you could probably etch glass with my blood. Drop corona-V, or aids or ebola from a dropper into a petri dish of my blood and it would instantly react and vanish in a small puff of smoke.
We really are different.
Reminded me of the film, Jacob’s Ladder.
The Jehova Witless ain’t gonna do transfusions.
https://youtu.be/ujxDA9VsQG4?t=71
Blues Brothers, “then I guess you’re really up $hit creek”.
Oh, I hope that’s not the case. LOL
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