Senator Sonny Angara reiterated his appeal to individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their blood plasma in order to help save more lives, particularly those that are in severe or critical condition.
After spending more than a week at the hospital for treatment after being tested positive for COVID-19, Angara has since recovered and has donated his blood plasma as requested by his doctors.
Researchers and doctors alike have reported that several COVID-19 patients in critical condition showed improvements or were able recover after receiving convalescent plasma treatment.
The procedure involves getting blood from people who recovered from COVID-19 because they have the antibodies to the disease in their blood.
The blood then goes through a process to separate the plasma with the antibodies, which is then transfused into a COVID-19 patient.
Angara was informed by his doctors that a health worker infected with COVID-19 would benefit from his blood plasma and so considering his own experience as a patient, he did not think twice about donating.
“Sa akin parang it’s the least I could do to pay back noong tinawagan ako ng mga doktor– when the doctors called me and they said, there was a patient in need and he was a health worker. Sabi ko, wow, this is perfect, you know. We really need to help these guys,” Angara said in a television interview.
Some hospitals have been trying to reach out to the public for convalescent plasma donations from COVID-19 survivors to help save more patients in severe or critical condition.
Angara said the government must take the lead in this effort to secure more convalescent plasma donations by sharing their database on patients who have recovered internally with the hospitals.
“I think the government, and I am part of that government, we have to be better in organizing the efforts. Like here in the donation of plasma, dapat government-led yan because the information is with government agencies,” Angara said.
“We should not cite any technicalities like privacy which prevents us because we can try to secure their consent naman and protect their privacy at the same time. So dapat, gobyerno ang namumuuno diyan, dahil yung datos nasa gobyerno e,” he added.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, in a tweet replying to Angara, committed to studying this proposal, “in line with the current monitoring of the UP PGH plasma convalescent antibody therapy for application in various public hospitals.”/Stacy Ang
