Houston Hospital Tries Method From Spanish Flu Era To Help COVID-19 Patient

The method ‘Convalescent Serum Therapy’ dates back to 1918; it during the outbreak of the Spanish Flu when it was first used.

Houston: Houston Methodist Hospital in the U.S. tries blood transfusion therapy to treat a critically ill COVID-19 patient on Saturday. This is the first time a hospital has tried this experimental therapy for Coronavirus treatment. The blood of a recovered person was transfused to a critically ill patient to help them fight against the virus, the donor’s blood was monitored for two weeks and had been in good health for donation.

The method ‘Convalescent Serum Therapy’ dates back to 1918; it during the outbreak of the Spanish Flu when it was first used. After which it has been used in 2005 for SARS patients in Hong Kong, on H1N1 patients in 2009 and those infected by Ebola in 2014 and MERS patients in 2015.

Considering the number of positive cases, it is the best option for now as the vaccine will take at least a year. The Convalescent Serum Therapy takes the antibodies from the recovered patients and injects it into a critically ill patient to boost their fight against the virus. Though the result of this therapy is still awaited, the previous experiments with SARS and H1N1 has been successful.

The US Food & Drug Administration approved the use blood plasma last week, now the hospital is planning to collect blood plasma of at least 250 recovered people. Blood donation guidelines as drawn by the WHO are to be followed, that blood is collected with the permission of the donor.

The donor should not be suffering from any infectious disease like HIV, syphilis, hepatitis etc.