07/23/2020 - 18:50
- Clarín.com
- Society
This Thursday, in remote session, the Senate signed into law the national campaign to donate plasma from patients recovered from coronavirus. Plasma contains antibodies originating from the immune system and a clinical trial is underway to combat Covid-19 infection and has shown encouraging results.
The project, which on June 26 obtained a sanction from the Chamber of Deputies, establishes "a special license for two-day dependency donors for each plasma donation they make." It does not matter if the people who donate work in the public or private sphere, the license must be remunerated at every opportunity "having to prove such circumstance before the employer by presenting the certificate issued by the intervening health center ".
The initiative was promoted by the president of the All Front block, Máximo Kirchner; his PRO partner, Cristian Ritondo; and the head of the Federal Interblock, Eduardo Bucca, and also includes initiatives from other banks, such as the radical. Those who donate will also be declared " outstanding solidarity citizens of the Argentine Republic".
In the foundations of the project, they explain: "The Federico Abete Trauma Hospital of Malvinas Argentinas of the Province of Buenos Aires has advanced with this technique, and the Provincial Ministry of Health has reported preliminary results that show that 90% of patients of Covid-19 treated with plasma in health centers of that district have been recovered . For this reason, a national campaign is necessary to promote the donation of blood plasma from patients recovered from covid-19 ".
Plasma is obtained through a process of collecting blood from recovered patients, which is why it is called "convalescent plasma". It is transfused into a person who is suffering from the disease and provides a kind of boost to the immune system that can help speed up the recovery process. It is not yet a treatment against the disease, it is still in the testing phase.
Who receives it
The application criteria depend on the decision of the doctors and the health status of each patient, who must comply with the strict requirements of each protocol according to jurisdiction, included in the national protocol.
The best known case of plasma recovery is that of Martín Insaurralde. The mayor of Lomas de Zamora spent two weeks of the covid-19 infection process and a hospital stay of the same period at the Llavallol Hospital. He was discharged after a plasma transfusion that, in 48 hours, improved his general condition.
Insaurralde was a risk patient, because in addition to his history of testicular cancer in 2011, he has pathologies in the lung and kidney systems. His condition as a serious patient made him a candidate to receive plasma, something that had to be clarified by him and his doctors before the controversy over the plasma assignment that sparked the viral video of a patient from the Santojanni Hospital who said that he had been given it. They denied because "it is only for politicians and the wealthy."
Following the directives of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, each health center has developed its own protocol for the use of plasma and they contemplate from the choice of the donor, the obtaining of the plasma by apheresis to the transfusion and the evolution of the recipient.
In the Province of Buenos Aires there is a single protocol validated by the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health. It was created ad hoc from the general guidelines of the allocation guides written from the same portfolio but from the Nation. It establishes that it only applies to patients with moderate to severe illness (neither mild nor critical).
In the city of Buenos Aires, more than 100 patients with covid-19 already received this treatment in the city of Buenos Aires. At Capital, there are three protocols validated as guides . In addition to the national one, another is that of Fernando Polack, the renowned infectious disease specialist who will be responsible for conducting the trial of the coronavirus vaccine by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech in the country, and proposes its use also in mild patients.
ACE