TAMPA, Fla. — A big step forward in COVID-19 treatment and a breakthrough for a Florida-based nonprofit blood center serving the southeast.
OneBlood just became the first blood center to get full FDA approval to give high-titer COVID-19 convalescent plasma from people who recovered from COVID-19 to those with COVID who are also immunocompromised.
“This license is something new and very important, especially for the ten million people in the United States who are immunosuppressed and can benefit from this,” said Dr. Rita Reik, Chief Medical Officer of OneBlood.
Dr. Reik explained that, early in the pandemic, they were using convalescent plasma as treatment under an emergency use authorization, and now, five years later, they have enough data for that full FDA approval.
“This plasma is collected from persons who have had COVID, and they recovered, and they are now healthy and meet all blood donor criteria, but they have a very high level of antibodies against COVID in their plasma. We can test for that and confirm that it is a nice high level of antibody. And when we give that plasma to the person who is immunosuppressed, they receive the same or at least similar protection against the virus that the healthy donor has developed,” said Dr. Reik.
Dr. David Sullivan is a professor and researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. ABC Action News asked him how this treatment will directly impact people with compromised immune systems.
“A lot of them are fearful of still resuming their normal pre-COVID lives,” said Dr. Sullivan. “They can’t be completely worry-free, but I think it does lessen the worries knowing that they have an antibody therapy to possibly combine with drug therapy, so if they get it, they don’t have to be so fearful of their lives.”
“OneBlood has been actively involved in this since the early part of the pandemic. We gave our first unit of emergency use CCP in April of 2020,” said Dr. Reik. “To be the last person in the relay race that takes the baton across the finish line and gets the license is very gratifying for us.”
