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The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday it was taking the lead on a national effort to facilitate the use of plasma from recovered patients to treat patients infected with the coronavirus.

, with funding from the federal government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

The FDA's move complements an effort by a consortium of 50 hospitals and universities called the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project. This week, the Project launched a 

 for patients, healthcare providers and potential donors. The idea is to provide "one stop shopping" for people interested in getting information about using the approach.

The idea is fairly straightforward: patients who have recovered from the virus must have mounted a robust immune response to the infection. Sharing the antibodies from that immune response that linger in their plasma could help others recover.

The approach has been around since the 1890s. More recently it has been used to treat 

 of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and 

 of Albert Einstein Medical College championed the approach as a treatment for COVID-19. A small 

 in China has already suggested the approach might be helpful.

The Plasma Project website is being hosted by 

 spearheads the project. He says he didn't plan to run a website. He wrote some background material for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine that led to an 

 of exploring the benefits of convalescent plasma.

"And the next thing I know Amazon Web Services is contacting me," Paneth says, offering to help build a website. "I did very little except say, 'OK.' " The Amazon team partnered with Michigan State Information Technologies to create the final product. 

"We have 1,200 donors who are listed on our website," Paneth says. "We're sending them 

On March 24, the Food and Drug Administration released 

 making it possible for doctors to give convalescent plasma to patients on an emergency use basis for severely ill patients.

But Paneth thinks it's unlikely that using the plasma when patients are 

 will be very helpful. He says experience shows it is "best to give [it] in the first few days of illness." In fact, researchers at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins are launching a 

 to see if the plasma can prevent disease altogether in people merely exposed to the virus.   

Health

COVID-19

Joe Palca

Author

The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it will take charge of a program that includes the 

The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it will take charge of a program that includes the Mayo Clinic and the American Red Cross with funds from the federal government.


FDA supports effort to develop COVID treatment from plasma of recovered patients

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