Blood Money

LONDON: A black market is cashing in on the Covid-19 pandemic by trading in the blood plasma of impoverished coronavirus survivors, foreign media reported.

But experts are warning the macabre money-spinner could actually endanger the lives of desperate patients more than the virus itself. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far killed nearly half a million people with more than nine million infected with many developing nations facing the collapse of their healthcare systems.

One effective treatment is using blood plasma from former patients which contain virus fighting anti-bodies.With demand so high for what some see as a “miracle cure”, plasma peddling has emerged as a lucrative trade.

Recovered patients, often those living in poverty, are donating their sought-after plasma to shady labs where strict hygiene cannot be guaranteed.However, harvesting, storing and infusing blood plasma has to be done by regulated clinics or patients risk catching another deadly disease. Speaking to the Sun Online, Dr Simon Clarke, a cellular microbiologist at the University of Reading, explained the dangers of the trade. Plasma trade:

He said: “The big problem is, one, do you know that somebody has actually had Covid-19 and it is what it claims to be?“The other thing is whether it is free of blood borne viruses and infections like Hepatitis B and C and HIV?

“Then you want to make sure the plasma has been collected and stored properly and was free of other bacterial infections.“These would not necessarily come from the blood but grow in it if it has not been stored properly and not harvested in a sterile way.

“And these things also have a shelf life, is it past it’s shelf life?”Dr Clarke also says infusing it is not without risk and has to be done under close supervision.Because the virus is new medics have not been able to come up with a vaccine and struggled finding medicine to combat the bug. Antibodies are usually found in the blood plasma of someone who has recovered from an illness, although the quality varies from patient to patient.

It has to be transfused into people who are seriously ill with Covid-19 and are struggling to develop their own antibodies. But the stocks can never meet the relentless demands as the contagious respiratory illness relentlessly spreads across the world and overwhelms hospitals.