Plasma donation, "convalescent plasma" and Covid-19 antibodies

Blood plasma is a big source of antibodies for people who don't make their own, and in these days of Covid-19 pandemic, antibodies are again in the news. As the number of recovering patients grows, can the antibodies they produce be of help in stemming the spread of the disease, or in curbing its intensity?

Here's a just published report of a quite preliminary study from China, in the PNAS:

Effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy in severe COVID-19 patients
by Kai Duan, ... Xiaoming Yang (46 authors)
PNAS first published April 6, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004168117
Contributed by Zhu Chen, March 18, 2020 (sent for review March 5, 2020; reviewed by W. Ian Lipkin and Fusheng Wang)


"Significance: COVID-19 is currently a big threat to global health. However, no specific antiviral agents are available for its treatment. In this work, we explore the feasibility of convalescent plasma (CP) transfusion to rescue severe patients. The results from 10 severe adult cases showed that one dose (200 mL) of CP was well tolerated and could significantly increase or maintain the neutralizing antibodies at a high level, leading to disappearance of viremia in 7 d. Meanwhile, clinical symptoms and paraclinical criteria rapidly improved within 3 d. Radiological examination showed varying degrees of absorption of lung lesions within 7 d. These results indicate that CP can serve as a promising rescue option for severe COVID-19, while the randomized trial is warranted."
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Here's a story from the WSJ:

Coronavirus Survivors Keep Up the Fight, Donate Blood Plasma to Others
National Covid-19 project seeks volunteers to aid the seriously ill; ‘I feel obligated to help’
By Amy Dockser Marcus

"The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where Mr. Sherman volunteered to donate plasma, is one of 34 institutions around the country participating in the National Covid-19 Convalescent Plasma Project, which is seeking blood-plasma donations from recovered patients who have a confirmed Covid-positive test and are at least 21 days out from the onset of symptoms.
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“The biggest problem is not the lack of donors,” said Arturo Casadevall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, and one of the organizers of the national project. “It is the logistics of figuring out how people who want to participate can actually donate.”

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And here's a plasma industry press release:

Global Plasma Leaders Collaborate to Accelerate Development of Potential COVID-19 Hyperimmune Therapy

"Osaka, JAPAN, and King of Prussia, PA, USA – April 6, 2020 –  Biotest, BPL, LFB, and Octapharma have joined an alliance formed by CSL Behring (ASX:CSL/USOTC:CSLLY) and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) to develop a potential plasma-derived therapy for treating COVID-19. The alliance will begin immediately with the investigational development of one, unbranded anti-SARS-CoV-2 polyclonal hyperimmune immunoglobulin medicine with the potential to treat individuals with serious complications from COVID-19.
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"Developing a hyperimmune will require plasma donation from many individuals who have fully recovered from COVID-19, and whose blood contains antibodies that can fight the novel coronavirus. Once collected, the “convalescent” plasma would then be transported to manufacturing facilities where it undergoes proprietary processing, including effective virus inactivation and removal processes, and then is purified into the product."

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My other posts on plasma, mostly focused on repugnance to compensation for donors. Here's one that explains some of the underlying medical issues:

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Plasma shortage alert from the IDF--the Immune Deficiency Foundation