A 29-year-old man has become the first citizen of the UAE to donate his plasma in a new treatment against COVID-19. The man was chosen due to the fact that he had previously recovered from a Coronavirus infection. Doctors now hope that his blood may be key in saving the lives of many others.
Convalescent therapy offers new hope
The Shaikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi is leading the forefront in finding treatment for Coronavirus. The new procedure, which known as convalescent therapy takes antibody-rich plasma from a patient. It has successfully recovered from the infectious agents present in the disease.
This pioneering new treatment for COVID-19 is based on similar treatments that were successfully used during the SARS epidemic. Convalescent plasma therapy operates as a type of immunotherapy, meaning that it is essentially building up the strength of patients bodies to fight against the virus.
While this new treatment does bring hope to many, it isn’t suitable for all patients. You have to age between 16 and 75, not have any conditions that could pose a risk during the therapy process and be of a matching blood group to the donor.
History provides answers to the modern Coronavirus crisis
In 1918 Spanish flu ripped its way through the world. Without access to modern medicine, millions of people died. In fact, the death toll of Spanish flu was so high that the true number will never really be known. Experts have estimated that somewhere between 17 and 50 million people lost their lives during the pandemic.
One of the few treatments that worked against the Spanish flu was blood transfusions from patients who had successfully survived the infection. Historians believe that without the transfusions the death toll may increase by a further 50%. Millions of lives saved using these methods.
Science has advanced a lot in the last hundred years, but taking those early therapies as a foundation doctors are able to create a treatment that they believe will be key in beating the Coronavirus.
