How the blood of coronavirus survivors may protect others from COVID-19
As U.S. scientists race to stave off a tidal wave of COVID-19 patients, they are showing renewed interest in a little-known medicine with ancient roots and many modern applications: convalescent plasma.
It's medicine now coursing through the veins of at least 86,690 people in China and elsewhere, all of whom have joined a fraternity of potentially powerful healers. These are people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus and survived.
Scientists believe the antibodies generated by these recovered patients' immune systems will protect them from reinfection, at least for a while.
And if those same antibodies can be harvested from their blood and repackaged safely for administration to others, they may do something more remarkable.
In patients
