MDA to treat coronavirus patients with new ‘passive vaccine’

‘Very much helped’ in recoveries in China

The first patient who recovered from coronavirus donated plasma on Wednesday that will be used to create a “passive vaccine” to treat Israelis who are severely ill with COVID-19, according to Magen David Adom deputy director-general of blood services Prof. Eilat Shinar.

This assumes that those who have recovered from the disease have developed special antivirus proteins or antibodies in their plasma, which could therefore help sick patients cope with it.

“When people are exposed to any disease, they develop antibodies,” Shinar explained.

Passive immunization is when you get those preformed antibodies. An active vaccine, in contrast, is when you are injected with a dead or weakened version of a virus that tricks your immune system into thinking that you’ve had the disease and your immune system creates antibodies to protect you.

In the first phase, plasma will be frozen and then delivered to hospitals across the country for patients to be treated by transfusion, Shinar said. In the second phase, the goal is to collect enough plasma to prepare antibody (immunoglobulin) concentrate with which patients will be treated later.

Shinar said the Health Ministry is currently in discussion with two companies that can create the immunoglobulin and is writing a protocol for who can receive the treatment.

MDA has been collecting plasma for more than 30 years; thousands of volunteers donate blood this way every day. Plasma with antibodies was used to treat patients with SARS during the outbreak in 2002. In addition, Israel offered a similar treatment to patients with West Nile fever.

Last week, Shinar said, the FDA approved a similar protocol in the US.

Earlier this week, The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article about plasma being used to treat five COVID-19 patients in China, which said that it “very much helped in their recovery,” Shinar said.

Before being able to donate plasma, a patient must wait 14 days from the time he or she was confirmed negative for coronavirus via two separate swab tests – hence the reason the first plasma was donated only on April 1. Shinar said that there should be another batch of donors available after Passover – those who were infected over the Purim holiday.

MDA will invite the potential donors to its Pheresis Unit at MDA’s Blood Services Center at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Shinar said that if there are enough donors from a particular city, however, MDA could set up a center there. Donors can also offer to donate on their own by calling 03-530-0445.

Plasma can be given as much as twice a month.

MDA director-general Eli Bin said his organization is at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus in Israel, and with this new treatment and others being tested in Israel and around the world, “we all hope that together we will overcome this challenge.”