UK Edition
Coronavirus patients given survivors' blood in new treatment trial at London hospitals
More than 6,500 people have signed up for the trial at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals which will begin in 'the coming weeks'
Coronavirus patients will be given the blood of survivors of the deadly disease as part of a new treatment being trialled at London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals.
More than 6,500 people have signed up for the trial, which will begin in “the coming weeks”, the hospitals' Biomedical Research Centre said.
Donations have already been collected from 148 people in England, with the hope being that transfusions will boost the struggling immune systems of Covid-19 sufferers.
The potential treatment, variants of which have long been used to fight other infections, uses the liquid part of the blood, known as convalescent plasma.
The hospitals said if the trials proved it to be effective, NHS Blood and Transplant will begin a national programme to deliver up to 10,000 units of convalescent plasma per week to the National Health Service, enough to treat 5,000 patients each week.
The trial is co-led by Dr Manu Shankar-Hari, a consultant in intensive care medicine at the hospitals, along with experts from NHS Blood and Transplant and the University of Cambridge.
“As a new disease, there are no proven drugs to treat critically ill patients with Covid-19. Providing critically ill patients with plasma from patients who have recovered... could improve their chances of recovery,” said Dr Shankar-Hari.
Health and Social Care secretary Matt Hancock said: “This global pandemic is the biggest public health emergency this generation has faced and we are doing absolutely everything we can to beat it.
“The UK has world-leading life sciences and research sectors and I have every hope this treatment will be a major milestone in our fight against this disease.
“Hundreds of people are participating in national trials already for potential treatments and the scaling up of convalescent plasma collection means thousands could potentially benefit from it in the future.”