Super Plasma

On March 17th 2020, the Department of Immunohematology and Transfusion Medicine of San Matteo Hospital in Pavia (Italy) started to implement an experimental clinical protocol in response to the spread of Covid-19 infection. Is plasma therapy really effective against Covid-19? In my photo reportage, I collected the voices of the donors who survived, one year ago, from Covid-19 and who decided to join the study and help other people.

On March 17th 2020, the Department of Immunohematology and Transfusion Medicine of San Matteo Hospital in Pavia (Italy) started to implement an experimental clinical protocol in response to the spread of Covid-19 infection. This protocol is the result of the collaboration between San Matteo Hospital and other healthcare centers in Lodi and Mantua. It relies upon the use of hyperimmune plasma or convalescent plasma (donated by patients who have recently recovered from Covid-19 and rich in anti-virus antibodies), to be administered to critically ill patients.
This is not brand-new therapy. In the past, it was carried out in order to increase the survival rate of patients affected by equally serious acute respiratory syndromes caused by other coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS. In Pavia, the plasma therapy helped several people to recover from Covid-19 virus during the first and it was promptly put in play during the subsequent waves of the pandemic.
Is plasma therapy really effective against Covid-19? The results of the study, ended on May 8th 2020, have been published in the well-known scientific journal Haematologica. The report shows how, thanks to plasma therapy, the avarage mortality rate declined from above 13%-20% to 6%.
In my photo reportage, I collected the voices of the donors who survived, one year ago, from Covid-19 and who decided to join the study and help other people.
While we were all waiting for the report of the study and for an effective vaccine, I interviewed Doctor Cesare Perotti, Responsible for the Department of Immunohematology and Transfusion Medicine at San Matteo in Pavia and Head of the test on hyperimmune plasma therapy (June 1st 2020).
“The perfect donor is a person who recently recovered from Covid-19. He must be tested negative twice in 24 hours to swabs. On top of this, at least 14 days need to pass since the disappearance of symptoms or since the end of anti Covid-19 therapy for infected people being eligible for donation. The convalescent plasma is a very limited resource – that could be collected in a very short time – and this is why it is so precious. It is not so common find women among donors: first of all, Covid-19 hit men more intensively than women; secondly, women who had pregnancy or abortion have developed antibodies potentially dangerous for the recipient patients.
Since now, we count 250 donors in the program. Over these last weeks, all of them told me the same thing: “I’m here for helping those who got the virus just like me”.
Covid-19 is a new virus. We don’t know much about it, and the pandemic is having a massive impact on our lives. It is understandable that all the news about the virus fed an intense public debate and criticisms. The study is closed and we can say that we achieved excellent results. It is hard to predict the future. For sure, it is important that all of us keep on using precautions (masks, gloves, social distancing) because this is the way to contain the spread of the virus. Hoping we won’t need this again, we are collecting and stocking hyperimmune plasma in the event a second wave of Covid-19 might take place in the near future.
There is one image fixed in my mind over these last months: the anxiety of waiting for the results of a transfusion to an ill patient, and in the subsequent days, the happiness for seeing him/her getting better soon”.