The blood of recovered Covid-19 can be used as a treatment to eradicate it: in Mexico they are already evaluating applying it

[Inkriql]

A few days ago it was revealed that hospitals in the United States are preparing to test a blood treatment of patients who recovered from Covid-19 to find a possible vaccine or treatment to fight the disease, so health authorities in Mexico They are already evaluating applying the first phase of research.

"Yes, we are evaluating it, we at the IMSS ... will be tested as a research project, for which we will ask for the cooperation of those subjects who had a mild illness and have already recovered, we will demonstrate that the virus no longer circulates in their body and they will be asked for plasma, ”confirmed Dr. Victor Hugo Borja Aburto, director of Medical Benefits of the IMSS Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) at the conference of the daily report of the federation on the updating of coronavirus data in the country.

However, they stressed that it may be a long-term possibility, but that currently preventive measures focus on avoiding massive contagions and urge citizens to avoid congregations of people and take extreme hygiene to avoid contracting the disease, which is highly contagious.

 

This is a centennial treatment, which seeks to use the blood donated by patients who recovered, initially from outbreaks of influenza and measles in the days before vaccines (and more recently treated against SARS and Ebola), but now could turn out for the Covid-19.

Doctors in China attempted the first treatments for Cov-SARS 2 using what history books call "convalescent serum," today known as plasma donated by survivors of the new virus.

Now, a network of American hospitals is waiting for permission from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin large-scale studies of the serum as a possible treatment for the sick and temporary protection for people at high risk of infection.

There are no guarantees that it will work.

"We won't know until we do, but the historical evidence is encouraging," said Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the John Hokpins University School of Public Health, speaking to The Associated Press.

 

Casadevall used that story to submit the request. The FDA is "working fast to facilitate the development and availability of convalescent plasma," a spokesman said.

"There are good scientific reasons to try to use the blood of survivors," said Dr. Jeffrey Henderson of the University of Washington, San Luis, medical school, who co-authored the request with the FDA along with Casadevall and another colleague. from the Mayo Clinic.

When a person is infected with a specific germ, the body begins to produce antibodies to fight the infection. Once the person recovers, those antibodies float in the survivor's blood (specifically the plasma, the liquid part of the blood) for months, sometimes years.

 

One of the planned studies would examine whether giving survivors plasma infusions with antibodies to new patients with Covid-19 would help strengthen the patient's immune response.

Something like this, although unlike a vaccine, any protection would be temporary.

A vaccine trains a person's body to make its own antibodies against a specific germ. The plasma infusion would give people a temporary injection of another person's antibodies, which is short-lived and requires multiple doses.

But if the FDA approves it, a second study would give plasma infusions to people at high risk of infection, such as medical personnel, said Dr. Liise-anne Pirofsk, of the Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. That could also include nursing home residents when one of them gets sick.