Health officials have prioritised two clinical trials that will be supplied with blood from recovered Covid-19 patients in the hope that transfusions can help save the lives of people hospitalised with the infection. From a report: NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has started to collect blood from recovered patients with a view to using the antibody-rich serum to boost the immune systems of patients struggling to overcome the virus. The limited supply of convalescent plasma will be given to patients enrolled on sub-studies in the Recovery trial led by Peter Horby at the University of Oxford, and the Remap-Cap trial led by the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) in London. The Recovery trial will assess whether the plasma helps patients to recover before they are admitted to intensive care, while the Remap-Cap trial will investigate whether similar transfusions help to save patients who are already in high-dependency or intensive care units. At least one trial that was designed to assess whether the plasma could protect healthy people who are in close contact with Covid-19 patients, such as NHS staff and family members, was rejected by NHSBT amid a shortage of the donated serum.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot