What is plama therapy for Corona Virus

What is plasma therapy for corona virus treatment?

The human blood is made up of four components – red blood cells, white blood cells  platelets and plasma.

plasma is the liquid part of the blood. Plasma helps the blood clot when needed and supports immunity.

When a person having COVID-19 infection,  their body produces antibodies to attack the virus. These antibodies are secreted by immune cells, called B cell(lymphocytes), found in the plasma. If the infected person can produce sufficient antibodies, he can recover from the disease caused by the Corona virus.

Once a person has recovered, the antibodies continue to stay in the blood, waiting to fight the virus should it return.

In plasma therapy, the plasma of a person, who has recovered from Corona virus and thus has sufficient antibodies to fight the disease, is drawn and transferred to people who have freshly contracted the disease.

Discovery

 it was first discovered by German physiologist Emil von Behring in 1980. He was awarded the first ever Nobel Prize for medicine for this discovery.

 Mode of Action ?

Blood is taken from a person who recovered from Corona infection then serum is separated and tested for antibodies that will kill the corona virus.

If the plasma is rich in antibodies, it is transferred to the Corona  patient showing more symptoms.

Plasma donation is similar process to blood donation, except in the former, a small device separates plasma and simultaneously returns the red blood cells to the donor. Hence, the donor can donate plasm more frequently.

 

 How beneficial?

Plasma therapy has proved beneficial in several coronavirus patients in many countries though the sample size was small.

Recently, three Indian-American patients, who were critically ill, showed signs of recovery when they were transfused with the blood plasma of recovered patients.

The plasma drawn from one Donor can help two people, and plasma is taken at least two week after tested corona negative, by that time donor have right amount of antibodies.

Btw plasma therapy is temporary passive immunisation to the sick. 

It is not more effective as a vaccine, because vaccine can provide lifelong immunity against thr pathogen, that why discovery of Corona vaccine is  important.