Red Cross Plasma

Joe Zydlo joins us to talk about donating plasma during the pandemic.

It up jodie.

I will send it back over to you.

>> in coordination with the u.s. food and drug administration.

The red cross is seeking people recovered from the coronovirus to sign up to donate plasma to help current covid-19 patients.

People who have fully recovered from covid-19 have antibodies in their plasma that will attack the virus.

It's being evaluated as a treatment for patients with serious or immediately life-threatening covid-19 infections or those judged to be at high risk of progression to severe and life-threatening disease.

Joining us now is joe from the american red cross.

Welcome.

>> thank you.

Thanks for having me.

>> can you tell us and our v viewsers what is convalescent plasma?

>> how it pertains and how it affects covid-19 patients, with this plasma, people who recovered from covid-19 have made antibodies against the virus that are in the plasma and the thought is these antibodies when transfused into something who is severily ill will help control the infection.

So, convalescent plasma contains antibodies and has been used in the past.

And the fda has approved covalessent plasma.

It is continued to be studied to see if it helping those with covid-19.

We have seen the early cases hitting nationwide.

Either the red cross or other organizations that's been utilizing this.

So far so good.

>> wonderful.

So i understand that you guys are kind starting the check process.

But you have to determine whether we qualify or not.

What are some of the things that we need to know to make sure that we do or do not qualify?

>> well the main thing we want people to do, if you're eligible and meet the normal requirements, the blood donor, that's first and foremost.

There are additional things, additional questions that will need to be answered that people who recovered from covid-19 will have to meet the particular criteria.

We are trying to direct people who have interest to fill out an online form at www.redcrossblood.org/plasm... .

We will follow up to donate to the red cross or non-red cross collection site.

We will refer to to competitors.

We want to do whatever we can.

>> i notice some of those things too are, you have to make sure you're over 17 years old and in good health now and also of course that you had covid 19.

So those are some excellent things to look at in addition to getting on that website and checking and making sure you do qualify.

>> thank you joe for being with us today.

>> right.

Those are the most important things.

We don't want people to just, the other thing too, we have some donor centers and hospitals that we work with that i think we will be doing this.

It's obviously a process.

We really, all the organizes have sort of hit the ground running just a couple weeks ago.

It's still in the early stages of this process.

Again this will allow even more and as they do, we certainly want to get that inferring out to the public and the community to understand what they need to do if they have recovered from covid-19 and what would make them eligible to help out.

That's the main thing.

Whether you donate to the red cross.

Donor center or our hospitals.

We don't care as long as we get good people that want to help and are eligible they're able to do