» Local donors ready to give plasma again to help COVID-19 patients.

Recovered patients’ blood used to treat people ill with virus

The moment he learned his blood plasma could help novel coronavirus patients, 36-yearold Richard Garivey was all in.

Recovering from COVID-19 himself, he heard about a study at Houston Methodist involving a process that has shown success with other illnesses.

About two months later, he is now an 11-time blood plasma donor.

“If I can help somebody, I’m going to help somebody,” Garivey, of Alvin, said. “There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Garivey is one of 205 recovered patients involved in the hospital’s study, the majority of whom are multiple-time donors. He hopes his donations have helped — each transfusion is enough for two patients, physicians say, meaning 22 people have received or could receive Garivey’s plasma.

The process, called convalescent serum therapy, uses former patients’ blood plasma as a treatment for people still ill with a disease. Dating back to the 1918 Spanish influenza and documented in research, plasma transfusions are meant to transfer healing powers from plasma antibodies, which are made by the immune system to attack infection.

Houston Methodist’s study has already found the plasma transfusions for COVID-19 patients to be safe. That study has been peer-reviewed, said Dr. Jim Musser, a study leader, and doctors are now determining whether the treatment is effective.

Of the first 25 critically ill patients who received the treatment, more than three quarters have recovered, according to the study. In Musser’s eyes, that makes the donors heroes.

“They’re honestly giving at this point the most important thing that they can, with respect to helping individuals who are afflicted with this terrible virus,” Musser said. “They’re giving them the potential for a better outcome.”

Like Garivey, Conner Scott has returned time and again to give. Plasma is the liquid portion of blood, and red and white blood cells and platelets suspend in it, according to the American Red Cross.

While he was sick at his apartment in College Station, Scott read about the therapy online and ran a Google search of studies in the area. The 20-year-old Texas A&M University student found Houston Methodists’ study, and he has since become familiar with the long drive to the Texas Medical Center as well as the faces of the people who work at the hospital.

Each time, Scott fills out a packet for returning patients, runs preliminary tests and sits down for the donation, all lasting about an hour, he said. For him, it’s the least he can do.

“It’s pretty selfish if I have something that could help people and I’m not doing anything about it,” he said, just before his seventh donation.

The process is similar to donating blood, but plasma donors are hooked up to a device that removes plasma and returns red blood cells back to the body at the same time, Musser said.

In all, one donation nets 1 quart of plasma. People can donate more frequently than they can in regular blood donations because they don’t have to wait for red blood cells to replenish, according to Houston Methodist.

Between two-thirds and threefourths of the 100 patients who have received plasma donations have been released from the hospital, Musser said. And Methodist can always use more donors, especially to accommodate for people with rare blood types, he said.

At first, Scott went twice a week, but the Methodist staff has scaled him back to about once a week because his plasma is carrying fewer and fewer antibodies from the disease. Garivey is on a weekly schedule for the same reason.

Each donor is paid a flat reimbursement for the costs of their time, Musser said. The most anyone has donated is 11 times, he said.

That person — Garivey — said he’s been told his antibody count is extremely high. He contracted the virus at the Houston Rodeo Cookoff, he said, and had only mild symptoms of the disease.

While holed up for 14 days, he watched TV news and realized how much other people were suffering, even though he would end up recovering well.

“Once I realized how it affects people in so many different ways … I felt I was more inclined to help,” he said. “If one of my kids were sick and I couldn’t help them but somebody else could, I would be begging them.”