Israel treats coronavirus through passive immunisation

ISLAMABAD: While red-tape is causing passive immunisation therapy to treat coronavirus patients in Pakistan delayed, Israel has successfully treated the coronavirus patients and has come out with evidence for the same.

According to Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post a 29-year-old Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) coronavirus patient who is being treated at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital has improved from serious to serious but stable condition after receiving multiple doses of plasma over the weekend from a donor who recovered from coronavirus, a spokesperson for the hospital told the newspaper.

On Friday, “with the assistance of Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman and his assistant, a suitable donor, a resident of Jerusalem who observes Shabbat (Day of rest for orthodox Jews), was found,” explained MDA director-general Eli Bin. The MDA brought her in an ambulance to its blood service center before Shabbat.

A special team was waiting for her and transferred the plasma units to the laboratories to perform all required tests and prepare them for transfusion. Then, with the approval of the Health Ministry, the blood units were delivered to Assuta and they were given to the patient. The young man, from Israel’s coastal region, is among the country’s youngest severe patients.

He has several underlying medical conditions. He has been hospitalised at Assuta for around a week-and-a-half. The first patient who recovered from coronavirus donated plasma on April 1, according to MDA deputy director-general of blood services Prof Eilat Shinar. Since then, some seven other patients have made donations and, in the last two days, plasma units were provided to three different hospitals.

A 60-year-old being treated at Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center in Be’er Yaakov also recently received plasma and his situation has likewise slightly improved. Shinar explained that the plasma is being used to create a “passive vaccine,” based on the assumption that those who have recovered from COVID-19 have developed special antivirus proteins or antibodies in their plasma, which could therefore help sick patients cope with the disease.

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.

Currently, MDA is in the first phase of creating this vaccine, whereby the plasma is 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.