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A Promising Coronavirus Treatment Has a Dark History
Through war and the AIDS crisis, plasma has helped and hurt the people who need it
One of the more promising potential therapies in the war against the coronavirus is the use of plasma from people recovered from the virus. Convalescent plasma — the liquid part of blood — is rich in antibodies. Although the treatment is early in the experimental stage, early reports indicate that injecting those antibodies into people with Covid-19 might give their immune system a much-needed head start, boosting their ability to fight off the virus, preventing the illness from becoming more severe and perhaps hastening their recovery.
This kind of therapy, called passive immunity, has been around for more than a century. Doctors employed it against the 1918 flu and against polio and measles before vaccines for those diseases were developed.
Scores of convalescent plasma clinical trials are taking place in the U.S. and around the world, comparing people with Covid-19 who receive the plasma to patients who don’t. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also approved an “expanded access” program in which people can receive plasma outside of studies if they’ve been admitted to an acute care facility and consent to the treatment. More than 19,000 people have…
