Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Virus study seeking plasma donations
LITTLE ROCK — Covid-19 didn’t seem like an immediate threat to a lot of Arkansans in early March, when David Mangan and his wife took a skiing trip to Vail, Colo., where they likely contracted the virus.
Now, a month after testing positive, Mangan has recovered and on Thursday became the first Arkansan to contribute plasma for an experimental procedure experts say could save the lives of those who are seriously ill with the new coronavirus.
The Hot Springs resident was one of three donors who gave convalescent plasma at an Arkansas Blood Institute center in Little Rock. The institute is working with the Arkansas Department of Health and the University
of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to gather blood from people who have recovered from the virus and have been symptom-free for two weeks.
Dr. Tina Ipe, division director for transfusion medicine at UAMS, said convalescent plasma from healthy, recovered patients has been used to treat patients with other SARS illnesses. Ipe said there are ongoing clinical trials seeking to find whether the antibodies in the plasma of recovered patients is an effective treatment. She added there’s anecdotal evidence in China a series of patients recovered that way.
“It’s a very exciting time,” Ipe said. “We want to make this potentially life-saving therapy available for all Arkansans.”
The treatment is in the exploratory phase and is for people who have a severe, life-threatening strain of the illness — for instance, those who might not be able to get off a ventilator on their own. With the first plasma donations collected, patients could begin receiving the new treatment as soon as today, Ipe said.
The state’s first case of covid-19 was confirmed March 11. As of Thursday evening, there were 1,146 cases and 21 deaths.
Mangan, 57, is one of more than 300 Arkansans who have recovered from covid-19, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. Nate Smith, the department’s director, was optimistic about the procedure when it came up Thursday at a news briefing with Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
“We believe there’s a good chance that that will actually help people who are severely ill to recover,” Smith said.
Mangan and his wife, Rachel, 50, experienced what are considered moderate cases of the virus. They believe they became infected on the trip to Colorado from March 2-6, which they took with friends from Dallas who also fell ill.
The Mangans felt their first flu-like symptoms March 9, immediately self-quarantined, and visited a doctor March 10. They tested negative for both types of the flu and for pneumonia, and respiratory syncytial virus was ruled out.
For the Mangans, the illness came in three waves. Since receiving their positive tests during the week, they said the sickness felt a lot like the flu: body aches, chills, headaches. Mangan was told he had what is categorized as a mild-to-moderate case, with no fever and no respiratory issues.
By that weekend, things had gotten better and they were telling people they’d recovered.
“We really thought we were over the hump,” Mangan said.
The second weekend brought respiratory distress, a symptom his wife, whose case is considered moderate to severe, is still experiencing after a five-day period where she was symptom-free.
“It really is kind of like a roller-coaster,” Mangan said.
Since both work in the medical field, the couple was able to keep a positive attitude while understanding the seriousness of the virus, though respiratory distress can be scary, Mangan said.
Lately, Mangan said he’s been on a bit of a soapbox about the invisible nature of the illness, urging people who aren’t experiencing symptoms to act as though they have the virus, or as though people they come into contact with do.
Mangan said he contacted the Arkansas Department of Health and asked if there was anything he and his wife could do. He said he hopes the experimental treatment is successful, and his wife plans to donate plasma as well when she is able.
“I really hope that anyone that has antibodies for covid-19 would consider being a part of this investigation,” he said.
The day’s second donor was Ben Floyd, 41, of Hensley. Floyd also believes he contracted the virus in Vail, on a business trip that turned into a ski trip he took from Feb. 27-29.
About a week after he got back to Arkansas, Floyd said he began having allergy symptoms, such as a runny nose, and took Zyrtec, which helped. But because he had another out-of-state trip planned, Floyd was tested for covid-19 March 11 and found out it was positive March 12.
Floyd said he “never in a million, trillion years” thought the result would be positive.
“Obviously my mind started racing,” he said.
Floyd said the hardest part was telling his wife, then his parents, and hearing the fear in their voices.
He developed a fever March 13, but it wasn’t very high — 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit — and went down quickly.
After hearing on the news about experimental treatments, Floyd said he contacted a friend at Baptist Health and said he wanted to be involved if possible. He said he wanted to show gratitude to healthcare workers with his donation. His contribution also was meaningful because he has a friend who was in an intensive care unit with covid-19 but is now doing better.
“It is really special to me, because one of my friends had such a bad case of it,” Floyd said. “I definitely wanted to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
People who are recovering from covid-19 and are interested in donating plasma can contact Ipe at tipe@uams. edu.