Dutch donors join global effort on plasma treatment

Dutch donors join global effort on plasma treatment

Medical researchers in the Netherlands have signed up 1,500 people who have recovered from the new coronavirus to donate blood as part of an international push to develop a treatment for the virus from their plasma.

Francis Maguire reports.

This line of people giving blood in the Netherlands have recovered from the new coronavirus.

They and 1,500 others have signed-up to a project that is part of a global drive to develop a treatment from their blood plasma.

Dutch firm Sanquin runs the tests in the Netherlands.

They are part of a worldwide non-profit alliance that includes Japan's Takeda.

Sanquin's Merlijn van Hasselt.

"So the founding fathers of this alliance came together to make sure that there is enough speed in developing some kind of plasma therapy against corona, so the whole goal is: pull the resources, put the brightest minds together to make sure that at the earliest possibility this therapy becomes available." Survivors of the disease are generally left with blood that contains antibodies or proteins made by the body's immune system to fight off the virus.

The blood which carries the antibodies can be collected and given to newly infected patients.

"If the clinical trials are well and the therapy is approved and hopefully in the brightest of scenarios, this might be one of the earliest treatment possibilities for patients." Doctors already use plasma from survivors to treat patients in some hospitals worldwide, But plasma supplies are limited as relatively few people have been exposed to the new virus and donated blood.