
Blood of recovered Covid-19 patients is becoming a hot commodity - adventured
https://www.wsj.com/articles/blood-of-recovered-covid-19-patients-is-becoming-a-hot-commodity-11590744600
======
rob74
> For instance, Biomex said supply is drying up as the number of cases in
> Germany falls. Another issue: Only around a third of donations have high
> enough concentrations of antibodies to be used as a positive control for
> antibody tests.

I'm not sure I understand this: if you are looking at recovered patients, the
number can only grow, albeit slower if there are less new cases? Or do the
patients have to be very recently recovered? Is the issue with the antibody
concentration related to the severity of the disease or to the time since
recovery? If the antibody concentration falls so sharply after recovery, that
doesn't sound good for long term immunity...

~~~
graeme
I can't find the reference, but there was a recent dutch preprint on a study
from 1985-2020, studying four other coronaviruses and reinfection. Immunity
lasted 6-12 months, reinfection was correlated with symptoms. Unclear if
symptoms were _as_ severe, or merely symptomatic.

Antibodies 50% gone by six months, 75% by a year.

Also highly seasonal, for what it's worth. Only 10 patients, all in the
Netherlands, but a long study period.

~~~
blueblimp
This isn't the one you're thinking of, but it has similar conclusions:
[https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/27/1000569/how-
long...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/27/1000569/how-long-are-
people-immune-to-covid-19/).

"They found that people frequently got reinfected with the same coronavirus,
even in the same year, and sometimes more than once. Over a year and a half, a
dozen of the volunteers tested positive two or three times for the same virus,
in one case with just four weeks between positive results."

~~~
isoprophlex
Well, that doesn't bode well for vaccine development, or does it?

~~~
disabled
Identifying the antibodies involved with COVID-19 was a major step towards
developing a vaccine.

However, if you get antibodies from somebody who had COVID-19, then it does
not confer you immunity. Those antibodies do not give your body a memory
effect that allows your body, on its own, to respond to the infection as a
preventative measure for COVID-19.

What it does though, for people who are actively infected with COVID-19, is
reduce the severity of the infection. The influx of antibodies are believed to
"neutralize" the COVID-19 virus already present in the body, by binding to the
virus itself.

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merricksb
[https://archive.md/wfHBT](https://archive.md/wfHBT)

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dehrmann
I'm surprised this hasn't encouraged more aggressive antibody testing of
random people to better estimate the virus's spread and source more blood.

~~~
evan_
Oregon has established a program where a representative 100,000 people
statewide are being tested on a regular basis to monitor the spread.

[https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/how-
oregons-s...](https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/how-oregons-
statewide-coronavirus-study-with-100000-people-will-work.html?outputType=amp)

~~~
morsch
10000 of them will be tested[1] regardless of symptoms. Very nice. I don't
understand (and have often wondered) why we, in Europe, haven't been doing
this for months. Plenty of testing capacity.

[1] the article doesn't specify, but presumably a PCR test

~~~
eveningcoffee
Luxembourg is planning nation wide testing [https://www.fnr.lu/research-
luxembourg-announcement-of-large...](https://www.fnr.lu/research-luxembourg-
announcement-of-large-scale-testing-strategy/) and already performed a
serological study [https://www.fnr.lu/research-luxembourg-first-results-of-
the-...](https://www.fnr.lu/research-luxembourg-first-results-of-the-con-
vince-study/)

Also other EU countries have done number of studies but results are often
published in their own language only.

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trhway
In Moscow the post-covid blood donors are getting $70 for 600ml of plasma
instead of regular $50.

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daenz
I donate blood semi-regularly, and they have been hammering my inbox lately
about giving again. I am sure donations have dried up and the reserves are
low, but I am wondering, if I unknowingly had C19 and recovered, would the
blood donation banks profit from this?

~~~
ken
The blood bank “profits” from every donation. That’s what a donation is.

If you’re asking if they specifically test plasma for COVID-19 antibodies and
scalp it to brokers, my guess is “probably not”. My blood bank has
documentation about the disease tests they do, and they say nothing about
testing for COVID-19 in particular.

~~~
disabled
> The blood bank “profits” from every donation. That’s what a donation is.

This especially applies for plasma donations, even though plasma donors (often
poor people, and predominantly in the US) are paid for their donations
(although a meager amount considering what is involved along with the side
effects of plasmapheresis). Basically the US effectively supplies the majority
of blood products for the world, and plasma is a precious human resource. The
US also has extremely lax rules on plasma donation.

There have been scandals relatively recently around paid plasma, where Mexican
nationals on visitor visas cross the border 2-3 times a week to do this. The
donations can in some cases be enough income to get by in Mexico (or so I
heard, but probably not well). This is important due to cartel violence, as it
is considered to be "safer".

However, watch the video on this page which details the scandal:
[https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-
companies-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/pharmaceutical-companies-
are-luring-mexicans-across-the-u.s.-border-to-donate-blood-plasma)

The 2 main people in this video, Mexican nationals, ended up having severe
health effects from the frequent (and legal) plasma donation route. In fact,
the female in the video literally had a secondary immune deficiency from
donating plasma so much, and if she continues (she was advised not to, by a
Mexican doctor) she definitely can end up with a primary immune deficiency and
other severe health problems.

Sure, plasma donations are necessary (I require a blood product due to a rare
neurological disease affecting my peripheral nervous system) but it is some
really sad stuff, too.

> If you’re asking if they specifically test plasma for COVID-19 antibodies
> and scalp it to brokers

Sometimes these plasma companies do test regular donors for certain (often
rare) antibodies, such as for whatever shot that is given to Rh negative
mothers who are pregnant with a child that could be Rh positive.

~~~
dehrmann
> Sometimes these plasma companies do test regular donors for certain (often
> rare) antibodies, such as for whatever shot that is given to Rh negative
> mothers who are pregnant with a child that could be Rh positive.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_(blood_donor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harrison_\(blood_donor\))

This guy is in Wikipedia _for being a blood donor._ He's estimated to have
saved 2.4 million lives.

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jonplackett
If a patient gives too much of their blood for this, would they have less
antibodies for themselves if they get reinfected?

~~~
entropy_
They would die of blood loss before that happens

~~~
jstanley
No they wouldn't. The blood (including antibodies) that is removed has been
removed.

The question is equivalent to "if you give blood, doesn't that mean you have
less blood for yourself?" and the answer is "yes, for a little while".

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neonate
[https://archive.md/wfHBT](https://archive.md/wfHBT)

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bookofjoe
>$1,000 for one milliliter

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deepspace
I am not able to access the article due to the paywall, but I assume that the
high prices are being charged by hospitals to researchers, and that the volume
of blood per patient is very low - test quantities vs donation/transfusion
quantities.

I can imagine that there would be a huge market for large quantities of
donated blood from recovered patients for transfusion purposes, so I would
expect to see several business sprout up in short order to exploit this
market.

