Red Cross warns of convalescent plasma shortage
The Red Cross is cautioning that convalescent plasma used in certain covid-19 treatments is in short supply, CBS News stated.
Convalescent plasma, antibody-rich blood plasma that is accumulated from individuals who have recovered from COVID-19, is given via blood transfusion to those suffering from COVID-19. At the beginning of those plasma studies, there was a 35 percent better chance of treatment success and survival when provided to them in early stages of infection, CBS News reported.
One more study released this month in the New England Journal of Medicine discovered that convalescent plasma lowered the advancement of COVID-19 in more mature patients when given within 72 hours of the start of symptoms.
“We just simply can’t keep up,” Dr. Pampee Young, chief medical officer at the American Red Cross, told correspondent Elise Preston at CBS affiliate KRQE in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “We need as many of our recovered COVID-19 patients as possible to roll up their sleeves and come in and donate,” Young said.
Although doctors and medical experts advise against portrayals of convalescent plasma as a quick fix or reliable treatment protocoal for the covid-19, experts are finding areas of hope in their constant analyses of the treatment. A newly released research publicized in the New England Journal of Medicine observed that corrective plasma minimized the progression of COVID-19 in older adults “when offered within 72 hours following the onset of mild Covid-19 symptoms.”
The Red Cross is one of the most important international humanitarian organizations. It has chapters across the world and has been involved in helping to improve people’s lives for generations. The organization is made up of individual organizations in several different countries, but its beginnings can be traced to a man named Henry Dunant. Red Cross Trivia will show that Dunant was a Swiss businessman that was present at the Battle of Solferino. His experiences there led him and four other men to create the International committee for Relief to the Wounded.
A Red cross quiz will show that their goal was to improve the availability of medical care to those who were hurt on the battlefield. The committee organized an international meeting in 1863 to discuss these goals. Baden, Bavaria, France, the UK, Hanover, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden-Norway, and Spain were all represented at that conference.
References
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2035678
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-convalescent-plasma-shortage/