Advocate Aurora administers its first convalescent plasma transfusion

Critically ill elderly patient 'doing well' after treatment

Apr 14, 2020 4:28 pm

An elderly male patient in Milwaukee has responded well to a convalescent plasma transfusion after being the first recipient in the Advocate Aurora Health system of an experimental COVID-19 treatment. The treatment involves taking the antibodies from the bloodstream of a person who has recovered from the virus and giving them to ill patients. Aurora

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An elderly male patient in Milwaukee has responded well to a convalescent plasma transfusion after being the first recipient in the Advocate Aurora Health system of an experimental COVID-19 treatment. The treatment involves taking the antibodies from the bloodstream of a person who has recovered from the virus and giving them to ill patients. Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center administered the procedure on April 10 to a critically ill patient, and is preparing to complete a second round of treatment for the patient later this week. “He is currently doing well after the treatment and is showing signs of improvement,” said Dr. Ajay Sahajpal, director of Advocate Aurora’s Health transplant program. Sahajpal said the procedure ideally involves two doses per patient, but the hospital hasn’t yet received the second unit of plasma. Last week, Milwaukee-based Versiti, Inc. began collecting plasma donations from recovered patients to send to its health system partners, including Advocate Aurora. “This has been a heroic effort,” Sahajpal said. "Versiti has been great." Plasma donors must meet certain requirements, including having proof of a positive lab test result and a negative test result 14 days after recovering from symptoms. As testing capacity in the state has ramped up and more people recover from the virus, Sahajpal anticipates plasma donations will be more plentiful in the coming weeks. “I expect in the next four to six weeks, there will be more and more plasma,” he said. “And by summer there will probably be a large supply.” Plasma infusion therapies have been used since the late 1800s, particularly when new diseases or infections develop quickly, when no other options are available. Previously the treatment was used during the Spanish flu in 1918 and more recently to treat SARS coronavirus, H1N1 influenza and MERS. It was recently approved by the FDA as an Emergency Investigational New Drug for treating COVID-19. Sahajpal said the treatment has proven effective to fight COVID-19 in other countries, including China. While health care providers wait for a vaccine — which is expected to take 12 to 18 more months — Sahajpal said this is an immediate option for helping patients. “We have to figure out how to manage patients between now and then,” he said. “... For the patients who are suffering most, we have to offer something to help these patients. My hope is that plasma can do that.” The biggest limitation at this point, he said, is the availability of plasma. “We really need people to come forward to donate,” he said. Last week, Dr. Dave Lal, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Wisconsin, was the first recovered COVID-19 patient to donate plasma with Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin. Get more news and insights in the March 30 issue of BizTimes Milwaukee:

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