A recent White House roundtable about plasma stressed the precious value of this blood component and the antibodies it contains after someone has recovered from COVID-19.
But potential plasma treatments can’t happen without plasma donors, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top health officials said. Here’s how Fauci and four other public health leaders acknowledged those willing to roll up a sleeve for a stranger.
Francis Collins, Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health: “Most of us, thank God, once exposed to this, do figure out how to recover from it because that immune system kicks into gear and makes those antibodies that then allow the virus to lose the battle and you to win. And now, having done so, you’re in a position to be able to donate your biotechnology product, which is your plasma, to somebody else who’s just now getting sick with this disease, and you have a chance to help them if their own factory hasn’t quite kicked in.”