BACOLOD City – This city plans convalescent plasma therapy for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
It would be an “adjunctive life-saving therapy” to hospitalized COVID-19 patients, according to City Administrator Em Ang, also the executive director of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Convalescent plasma refers to the plasma that is harvested from the blood of a person who has recovered from a disease. This is transfused into a patient still battling the same disease.
“(The convalescent plasma) exerts an antiviral effect, suppressing virus replication before patients have mounted their own immune responses,” said Ang.
In a resolution, the city council appealed to those who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate blood plasma to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital and the City Health Office.
It also asked Mayor Evelio Leonardia to grant incentives to donors.
In most countries, convalescent plasma therapy was “found to be an effective means” to treat moderate and severe COVID-19 cases, according to the resolution authored by Councilor Simplicia Distrito.
The city Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19 through the CHO and the Liga ng mga Barangay may create a list of volunteers, indicating their contact numbers and addresses that can be shared with all the hospitals, the city council further stated./PN
