President Trump urged those who have survived COVID-19 to donate blood plasma to help treat those with new infections.
Speaking at the White House on Monday about the coronavirus pandemic, Trump said the use of plasma to treat patients is a “brilliant art” and encouraged recovered patients to visit coronavirus.gov and learn how to donate plasma.
“We’re also very encouraged about the prospects for plasma therapies,” he said.
“This really makes people better,” Trump continued. “What we need is we need that beautiful ingredient that you that got better seem to have in your veins … We really appreciate it if you do it because we’re low. We could help a lot more people, and it would be a terrific thing … You had something very special, you had something that knocked it out, so we want to be able to use it.”
Convalescent plasma therapy is an experimental treatment in which blood plasma from recovered patients, which contains coronavirus antibodies, is transfused with the blood of a patient suffering from the illness.
Dr. Sohail Rao, executive vice president of the DHR Health system in Texas, told the Washington Examiner last month that he has seen the experimental therapy work on patients.
“Whether it is effective as a treatment, I can give you anecdotal experience,” Rao said. “It is a very safe procedure, and it is also very effective because we have seen patients who we were able to get them off the ventilator fairly quickly.”
The United States is approaching 4.7 million confirmed cases of the respiratory illness and has experienced more than 155,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
