Mandaue City makes plasma donation quicker with creation of pool of donors and recipients

The Mandaue City Presidencia. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa

CEBU CITY, Philippines— Mandaue City now has a quicker way to match plasma donors and recipients with the creation of the Mandaue City Pool of Convalescent Plasma Donors.

This was revealed by the  Mandaue City Public Information Office Facebook page via post shared on Monday, June 29, 2020.

“In order to fast track the search, as well as the partnering of plasma donors and plasma recipients, the Mandaue City Government creates its Pool of Convalescent Plasma Donors from its COVID-19 recovered patients,” posted on the advisory.

The pool will be based on the database of the city with its recovered Covid-19 patients who are good candidates or possible candidates to be placed under the convalescent plasma therapy.

These recovered Covid-19 patients who are candidates for the said therapy will then be forwarded to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center Bloodbank for proper disposition.

“Hybrid therapeutic plasma and convalescent plasma exchange is the transfusion of plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients to sick Covid patients and the removal of plasma from either a donor or a patient by use of an apheresis machine,” said the post.

With this pool, it will be easier for the city to match possible donors with patients who are still fighting to win over the virus infection.

Just recently, a group of physicians from the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital (CDUH) developed the Hybrid Therapeutic Plasma Exchange and Convalescent Plasma Therapy.

Read: Newly developed treatment for COVID-19 unveiled in Cebu

The CDUH physicians announced that the new therapy could be a promising solution for patients suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms.

It involved removing the bad plasma from the patient and then had it replaced it with good plasma from donors -or individuals who have successfully recovered from COVID-19. /bmjo