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
Subscribe or log in to read the rest of this content.