Coronavirus Treatment: Blood from Recovered Patients Is Safe to Use, Comprehensive Study Reveals

Another entrant in the race to find a treatment for COVID-19 might be found in the blood of once infected people who have recovered. Research has shown that “convalescent plasma” appears to be safe to use on active cases.

Confirming any medical treatment safe to use is half the battle won but the remaining struggle will be to prove what medical professionals call its efficacy. In layman’s terms: does it work?

Convalescent plasma therapy has previously been used to fight other viral outbreaks like Ebola, influenza, and SARS. What has been lacking until now is a trial on enough people to scientifically establish its effectiveness.

Described by NBC News as the most comprehensive national study to date, the research was undertaken at several institutions including Michigan State University and Johns Hopkins. Not yet peer-reviewed, a form of self-regulation in the field of medical research, the urgency caused by the pandemic resulted in the posting of the data on a public server, called MedRxiv. This allowed for a quick review of the data by other medical professionals.

Dr. Michael Joyner, a physiologist at the Mayo Clinic and the principal investigator of the study, told NBC News, “I've never put a paper on a preprint server before in my life, and I've published almost 500 papers. We wanted to get them out there to the treating physicians and the general public as soon as we could.”

“We're very encouraged that the treatment is safe. That was really the first hurdle for us. And showing that it's safe gives us confidence to move on and begin to try to understand the efficacy.

“We're really trying to build the plane and fly it at the same time,” Joyner added. “And the fact that we're able to get at least some analysis done so quickly, we're very pleased with that. We hope to do more, really almost in real-time.”

Here are some details of the study and the use of convalescent plasma:

• A team of more than 5,000 doctors from over 2,000 hospitals and laboratories has been testing the experimental therapy where antibody-rich blood serum of recovered COVID-19 patients is transfused into people who are battling the illness.
• Of the 5,000 seriously ill patients who received blood plasma transfusions, fewer than 1% experienced serious adverse reactions and the seven-day mortality rate of 14.9% was not excessive because of the patient’s gravely ill condition when the test began.
• Over 10,000 COVID-19 patients have now received the treatment at facilities across the country, according to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
• Doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, which is part of the national coalition, have used it on more than 350 COVID-19 patients.

Dr. Nicole Bouvier is affiliated with The Mount Sinai Hospital and is one of the leaders of their plasma program. She said, “It’s not a magic bullet. It doesn't cure everybody. But on the whole, patients who have gotten convalescent plasma have gotten better, quicker, and more often, than similar patients who didn't get convalescent plasma.”

One patient, Claudia Garcenot from New York City, and the chief nursing officer at Mount Sinai in Brooklyn, may disagree with Dr. Bouvier.

A day after the treatment she described her experience, “I remember taking that first deep breath,” Garcenot said, “Even though I still felt the tightness in my chest, I felt like I had oxygen. I breathed in again and I thought to myself, ‘It’s got (to be) the plasma,’” adding, “I felt like I’d won the lottery.”

Later, she said, “I really believe that receiving that plasma treatment is what changed the course of my illness.”

Garcenot was discharged from the hospital about two days later with no fever and normal blood oxygen levels.