Enthusiasm for one of the earliest promising treatments for covid-19 has waned. Katharine Lang finds that convalescent plasma for covid may still have a place, particularly in immunocompromised people
### What is convalescent plasma?
It’s a form of passive immunisation. Blood plasma containing antibodies from one person is given to someone else with the same infection. It’s been used since the late 19th century to treat diphtheria, scarlet fever, and pertussis and, more recently, haemorrhagic fevers such as that caused by the Ebola virus.1
Someone who has recovered from or been vaccinated against covid can donate covid convalescent plasma (CCP). This will contain antibodies to the strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus they were infected with, as well as antibodies created in response to any vaccine. Plasma can also be drawn from existing blood donations.
### Is it an effective treatment for covid-19?
Yes but only if given very early, before severe symptoms appear.
The World Health Organ
Blood donors frustrated they cannot get an early appointment are being urged to book ahead amid NHS Blood and Transplant issuing a four-week-long amber alert over low blood stocks.
A team of UK doctors have reopened a clinical trial to explore the benefits of blood plasma, from people both infected and vaccinated against Covid, to help treat people with weakened immune systems.The therapy involves transfusing plasma .
In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical community turned to a century-old treatment: Take blood from recovered patients and give it to the sick.