WEDNESDAY, March 25, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Access to a blood plasma treatment for seriously ill COVID-19 patients has been made easier by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The agency said Tuesday that it is "facilitating access" for patients with life-threatening infections to receive injections of blood plasma taken from people who have recovered after testing positive for COVID-19 and who have antibodies to the virus, CNN reported. The treatment is being tested in clinical trials by the state of New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
The FDA decision is a "big step" forward, Arturo Casadevall, M.D., chief of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told CNN.
"It has a high likelihood of working, but we won't know whether it works until it's done" and enough patients have been treated, he said. "We do know, based on history, it has a good chance," said Casadevall, who has pushed for the plasma treatment.
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