Doctors To Use Blood From Recovered Coronavirus Patients As A Vaccine
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Doctors believe that the cure for Coronavirus could be in the blood of those have been diagnosed and recovered from it.
NBC News reports that researchers from Johns Hopkins University plan to use “convalescent serum,” which takes antibodies from the blood of those who were previously infected. The antibodies from the blood plasma or serum of people who have recovered from COVID-19 will hopefully boost the immunity of newly infected patients and those at risk of getting the disease.
Dr. Arturo Casadevall said the last time this method was used was for the Spanish flu of 1918, where scientists discovered that transfusions of blood from those who recovered led to a 50 percent drop in deaths of those who were sick.
I’m an infectious disease doctor who is interested in history,” Casadevall said. “I knew the history of what was done in the early 20th century with epidemics. They didn’t have vaccines then, they didn’t have any drugs then — just like the situation we face now. But physicians then knew that, for certain conditions, you could take the blood of the immune and use it to prevent disease or treat those who became ill.”
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