Plasma banks in hospitals pushed

Senator Imee Marcos: Let’s prepare for the long haul.

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Imee Marcos has filed a bill seeking to establish plasma banks in both public and private hospitals across the country while a vaccine against COVID-19 has yet to be developed.

Under Senate Bill No. 1648 or the proposed Plasma Donation and Collection Act, the Department of Health would be tasked to “create guidelines on donor eligibility and a chain of custody to keep collected plasma safe from transmissible diseases.”

“There is hope in the use of plasma as a possible treatment for Covid-19, with clinical trials now being conducted by the PGH (Philippine General Hospital). The World Health Organization also sanctioned the use of plasma in other pandemics like the Ebola outbreak in Africa,” Marcos said in a statement on Monday.

“We must prepare for the long haul. Not even medical experts can tell the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, how much further cases of infection in the country will increase, and when a vaccine will be found,” she added.

Earlier, the office of Senator Sonny Angara, who recently recovered from COVID-19, launched a website where survivors can privately make plasma donations for patients in need.

Through the website, Plasma Ng Pagasa, COVID-19 survivors can “privately register with collecting hospitals their intent to donate convalescent plasma.”

A vaccine to treat COVID-19 has yet to be developed but some medical professionals believe antibodies harvested in the plasma recovered from the blood of survivors could help in the recovery of other patients.

Convalescent plasma therapy has been used against infectious diseases like the 1918 Spanish flu, H1N1, measles and to some extent, Ebola.

In April, the PGH said it has seen an improvement in nearly all of its COVID-19 patients who have received blood plasma from individuals who recovered from the disease.

To date, Philippine health officials have confirmed 46,333 COVID-19 cases in the country. Of the number, 12, 185 have recovered from the disease while 1,303 have died. [ac]