Donate plasma, save a life

People who have recovered from COVID-19 have a unique opportunity to help patients now suffering from the coronavirus. Health authorities need more of them to step up and donate blood plasma to make it happen.

In recent weeks, the demand for plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients — blood that includes antibodies they developed while sick with the virus — has outpaced the supply of it by about 2 to 1.

The plasma can be used in a handful of treatments to help current and future patients.

A Mayo Clinic project is using plasma from survivors in transfusions to help treat patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19. In other projects, plasma can be used to help develop antibody serums and other treatments meant to help treat ill people.

In most cases, to qualify for plasma donation, survivors will need to have been tested for coronavirus.

While testing has been limited, medical officials know that many people have gotten sick and recovered without ever getting a test to definitively diagnose their virus case. This unfortunately limits the pool of potential donors.

While rooted in experience with similar convalescent plasma treatments used with other illnesses, the COVID-19 plasma projects are all experimental as the coronavirus is new and treatments are only being developed. But medical officials believe the plasma treatments are promising and hope more of the growing number of recovered patients will donate blood to help develop them.

With more than 2 million cases of coronavirus in the United States, there are more potential donors every day. Those who want to donate their plasma should talk with their doctors to find out whether they are eligible and where they can donate.