INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Plasma taken from the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients stands a real chance of being one of the more effective short-term measures
feasible in the ongoing effort to control the global coronavirus pandemic
The FDA has issued a broad call for donations from eligible individuals, and now Microsoft has built an online screening tool on behalf of
the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance (which is funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
The &CoVIg-19 Plasma Bot& that Microsoft
created for the foundation is just the latest COVID-19-related bot built by Microsoft using its technology, and its symptom self-checker for
the CDC was one of the earliest large-scale efforts of its kind in the United States The Plasma Bot takes you through a series of simple
questions to determine your eligibility, from the perspective of both your ability to meet the actual biological and health requirements, to
your willingness and a ability to participate in the plasma collection process itself at a donation center.
Use of convalescent plasma, or
the liquid part of blood taken from people who have had, and subsequently fully recovered from, COVID-19, is a key treatment avenue being
explored by a number of different scientists and researchers
The investigations into its use take two main paths: First, direct use of the plasma injected into coronavirus patients and high-risk
individuals in order to boost their own immune system for either prevention or faster recovery; and development of what are known as
hyperimmune therapies, which concentrate the antibodies from donated plasma to develop treatments that are potentially easier and more
effective to administer at scale.
The biggest bottleneck to overcome for the trials and therapeutics in development related to convalescent
plasma is definitely the plasma itself, which can only come from patients who&ve had COVID-19 and are now fully recovered and healthy, and
who also meet other standard, existing requirements for donating blood and plasma.
Unlike a lot of other treatments under investigation and
development to address COVID-19, convalescent plasma has been shown to have been effective in treating other respiratory infections, and it
has a long history of use for such applications.
