April 17, 2020

If you’ve recovered from COVID-19, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University wants you to roll up your sleeve and donate your blood.

SUNY’s academic medical center in Brooklyn is seeking people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate blood to be used as convalescent plasma for to patients who are ill with the virus.

The blood donation program is part of a national effort being led by the Mayo Clinic. The clinic reports that one 200 ml dose of convalescent plasma has helped severely ill COVID-19 patients improve and eventually recover from the virus.

Former COVID-19 patients who want to donate blood should contact Maxine Easy, Downstate’s Convalescent Plasma for the Treatment of Patients with COVID-19 study coordinator, at Maxine.Easy@Downstate.edu.

“The use of plasma to help patients fight disease began before the turn of the century, and was widely used prior to the development of antibiotics in the 1940s,” said Dr. Michael Augenbraun, Downstate’s Chief of Infectious Diseases and a Downstate Chapter member. “We don’t yet know how COVID-19 antibodies might work in helping patients recover, but it is believed an infusion of convalescent plasma may improve their ability to fight the disease until their own immune system is strong enough to take over.”

Potential donors must have evidence of previous COVID-19 infection with either a nasopharyngeal swab at the time of illness or a positive serologic test for antibodies to SARs-COV2, and they must be symptom-free for 14 days and seen by a health care provider.

Click HERE for more information about the nationwide convalescent plasma program.