Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, a facility of the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company “SEHA”, has started its first attempts to treat the Covid-19 virus using blood plasma by giving the plasma taken from a recovering Corona virus patient to a person infected with the virus and suffering from moderate to severe symptoms.

This treatment uses plasma cells taken from a person who has recovered from the Coronavirus, as these cells contain immune bodies that the body has formed after inflammation, and usually form between 14 to 21 days after recovery. Plasma treatment for Covid 19 disease was promptly approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is used in several prestigious health centers around the world. Doctors have noted that 40-50% of patients who undergo this treatment have shown good and promising results.

A consultant and head of the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, Dr. Fatima Al Kaabi said, “Sheikh Khalifa Medical City started plasma treatment this week, where a 29-year-old Emirati young man donated blood plasma after recovering from the Corona virus, then was given plasma through Intravenous of one of the patients infected with the virus. We are still waiting for the results of this treatment, and we are optimistic that it will be promising, as we expect the patient’s condition to improve soon.

In turn, Dr. Heba Al-Humaidan, the consultant and acting head of the Medical Laboratory Department, said, “The patient receives plasma in a perfusion intravenously, and when the plasma containing the antibodies enters the patient’s body, those antibodies attack the virus, and prevent further damage to the vital organs of the body.” Like kidneys, heart and respiratory system. ”

Al-Humaidan explained that the plasma donation takes place in the blood bank of Abu Dhabi using the blood apheresis device using the blood donation method itself, whereby the apothecary device extracts the plasma that contains the immune bodies that help us in the treatment, within the international specifications according to the guidelines of the World Blood Transfusion Organization and the Blood Banks Organization American AABB. Plasma extracted from one donor is usually sufficient to treat two patients.