Plasma donation for COVID-19 patients should be led by gov’t – Angara

Sen. Sonny Angara
(File photo by EDWIN BACASMAS / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — The government should lead efforts in the donation of blood plasma from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) survivors to help patients battling the illness, Sen. Sonny Angara said Wednesday.

Angara recently donated blood plasma for a COVID-positive health worker in a hospital in Quezon City after he himself recovered from the disease.

“I think the government, and I am part of that government, we have to be better in organizing the efforts. Like here in the donation of plasma, the government should lead that because the information (COVID-19 survivors) is with government agencies,” the senator, speaking partly in Filipino, said in an interview on CNN Philippines.

“We should not cite any technicalities like privacy which prevents us because we can try to secure their consent naman and protect their privacy at the same time,” he added.

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

Convalescent plasma therapy, while still a novel study for COVID-19, has been used against infectious diseases like the 1918 Spanish flu, H1N1, measles, and to some extent, Ebola.

Angara said the patient he donated his blood plasma to had been recovering well.

“When the doctors called me and they said there was a patient in need and he was a health worker, I said ‘Wow,  this is perfect, you know. We really need to help these guys’,” he said.

“I got a text, around two days ago. It said he’s doing better now. So, hopefully, it would continue that way,” he added.

To date, Philippine health officials have so far confirmed 5,453 COVID-19 cases in the country.

So far, there have been 349 patients who died and 353 who recovered.

/atm