PGH Pushes Plasma Therapy For COVID-19

As the world is racing against time to find a cure for the highly contagious coronavirus disease (COVID19), medical experts are encouraging those who have survived the COVID-19 to donate their plasma to help those who are still fighting the disease.

- Analou De Vera

Medical experts at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) are using convalescent plasma therapy to help patients who are positive for COVID-19.

“Of the six adult patients that we had plasma infusion, none of them developed adverse reactions such as allergy, fever, lung injury, or volume overload,” PGH spokesman Dr. Jonas Del Rosario said.

He added that four patients who received plasma are currently “doing well.” One of them is already out of the intensive care unit and is in the recovery phase. The other three are still in the ICU but are in stable condition and improving.

Out of the six recipients, two of them expired, he said.

Convalescent plasma therapy is considered an old method as it has been tried over the years to treat patients during pandemics.

“It is an investigational treatment right now but it has been used for quite some time in respiratory viral illnesses that cause pandemics like the swine influenza, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Mers-Cov, and the SARS,” Del Rosario said.