It took less than eight hours for Dr. Kyle Annen to get the plasma — not just any blood donation, but one from a patient who had recovered from the new coronavirus and had the antibodies that might save someone else.
The clock started ticking when a physician at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital called for help last week. A patient was severely ill and on a ventilator. The plea for “convalescent plasma” from someone who had already survived COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was a desperate attempt to prevent another death in the coronavirus pandemic.
Annen, who is the medical director of the blood collection center at Children’s Hospital Colorado, immediately reached out to a few people who had previously called to say they had recovered from COVID-19 and would donate blood. And she soon found one.
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