Saptak's Diary: Apr 25, 2020

Today we look into possible solution of saving Lives of COVID19 PATIENTS

convalescent Plasma history -

Looking into history gives some idea on different tactics taken during a Pandemic and into genetic sciences.

But first - What is convalescent Plasma therapy ?

People who've recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies to the disease in their blood. Doctors call this convalescent plasma. Researchers hope that convalescent plasma can be given to people with severe COVID-19 to boost their ability to fight the virus.

Now let's peak into history -

Emil von Behring , born Emil Adolf Behring, was a German physiologist . His distinction -

the very first Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded in 1901 to him for his life-saving work developing a cure for diphtheria, a bacterial infection that was particularly fatal in children.

So how did Emil von Behring did it ?

He had taken antibodies from animals read Horses who had recovered from the disease and injected it to sick patients.

In 1934, a doctor at a private boy’s school in Pennsylvania tried a unique method to stave off a potentially deadly measles outbreak. Dr. J. Roswell Gallagher extracted blood serum from a student who had recently recovered from a serious measles infection and began injecting the plasma into 62 other boys who were at high risk of catching the disease.

Only three students ended up contracting measles and all were mild cases.

Von Behring’s antitoxin wasn’t a vaccine, but the earliest example of a treatment method called “convalescent plasma” that’s being resurrected as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Convalescent plasma is blood plasma extracted from an animal or human patient who has “convalesced” or recovered from infection with a particular disease.

Active Immunity & Passive Immunity :

When a person is treated with a vaccine, their immune system actively produces its own antibodies that will kill off any future encounters with the target pathogen. That’s called active immunity.

Convalescent plasma offers what’s called “passive immunity.” The body doesn’t create its own antibodies, but instead “borrows” them from another person or animal who has successfully fought off the disease. Unlike a vaccine, the protection doesn’t last a lifetime, but the borrowed antibodies can greatly reduce recovery times and even be the difference-maker between life and death.

Previous Pandemics :

During the pandemic influenza outbreak of 1918 known as the “Spanish flu,” fatality rates were cut in half for patients who were treated with blood plasma compared to those who weren’t. The method seemed particularly effective when patients received the antibodies in the early days of their infection, before their own immune systems had a chance to overreact and damage vital organs.

Another virus Hantavirus :

By the 1940s and 1950s, antibiotics and vaccines began to replace the use of convalescent plasma for treating many infectious disease outbreaks, but the old-fashioned method came in handy yet again during the Korean War when thousands of United Nations troops were stricken with something called Korean hemorrhagic fever, also known as Hantavirus. With no other treatment available, field doctors transfused convalescent plasma to sickened patients and saved untold numbers of lives.

KIND NOTE :

These are very tough times.

The COVID19 Pandemic has created lot of economical hazards all over the world.

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