Can blood from coronavirus survivors treat the newly ill?
LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hospitals are gearing up to test if a century-old treatment used to fight off flu and measles outbreaks in the days before vaccines, and tried more recently against SARS and Ebola, just might work for COVID-19, too: using blood donated from patients who've recovered.
Doctors in China attempted the first COVID-19 treatments using what the history books call "convalescent serum" -- today, known as donated plasma -- from survivors of the new virus.
Now a network of U.S. hospitals is waiting on permission from the Food and Drug Administration to begin large studies of the infusions both as a possible treatment for the sick and as vaccine-like temporary protection for people at high risk of infection.
There's no guarantee it will work
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