No plans for this in the UK from what I checked earlier. They're certain that COVID itself does not transmit in blood (is what that page currently says), and they have no mention of the usage - described elsewhere - of recovered persons' bloods being apparently beneficial to (some?) current sufferers. Perhaps effectively an antigen/antibody 'serum' effect
It's not for transmission (although I would not go as far as saying its impossible to catch covid from blood transfusion.. we simply don't know). It's to try to get an idea on how many people in the general population might have passed it already without knowing. Odds are the number is large
The convalescent serum thing is done in trials, which I'm sure are taking place in the UK. I'm surprised they're not posting it in the donor's website but, eh who knows what they're thinking. NICE guidelines are absurdly restrictive, it could be that they dont even let them advertise a trial. My erstwhile mentor apparently is bitter because they dont let him try HCQ as compassionate use in his patients.
Lack of conjunctions on my part. They say nothing about (background, effectively anonymised) infection-frequency testing[1], AND they say there's no point testing for transmission reasons[2], AND have no indicated plans to dabble in serums[3]. Now, there have been historic errors with handling donations[4] but given the amount of smallprint they have (mentioned on website in other areas, but fully included on the on-the-day donor form and various flashcards during the pinprick stage of testing) about what they're testing for along the way I'm surprised if they are currently screening for this
and still not saying.
I suspect the primary thing is that many of the tests they might use are still imperfect (false ±ves), as well as any rapidly changing situation that means that even the website could be lagging behind into alarmism/complacency, depending on the current trajectory of any even newer knowledge.
[1] It would also be skewed towards the "seemingly healthy and active blood-donor" demographic, which would need further statistical treatment to lead to the more general background population rate.
[2] SFAIK, it's 'designed' to infect the pharynx so much that if a significant viral-load gets into the blood-stream then you're going to already definitely notice its effects on the nose, throat, lungs and maybe even digestive tract. But IANAPathologist, so ICBW.
[3] Probably a waste to take a 470ml "whole blood" donations just for immunological reasons, even if you divide it by whatever homogonous but still efficacious sub-volume they need to discover is enough, while fractionating this 'new' component apart from the rest of the same-but-for-every-other-prior-pathogen components is going to be hard to get right. The utter ban on "having ever received any blood product since 1980" would probably elliminate (from acceptance) many current/future donors in the aftermath, too, if such a serum is spread it around too freely, so add that as another minor factor to balance in. An ex-vivo transfusion might well work but would be a potentially blunt instrument. Selectively 'printed' RNA segments might be more useful (either for fragment recognition/elimination purposes by the body's defences or direct antisense-blocking if it can be safely smuggled into where the RNA is exposed in time) or constructed viral receptor clusters (to avoid sifting through other blood components and not-yet-fragmented viral bodies) in this day and age with bioprinting capabilities that work on those scales (by size) if maybe not yet the required scale (by volume or moles). In development, therefore, I'd expect the current donation path to not be from J Random Regular Donor but perhaps more specificly targetted recovering ex-patients (with a blood tie to the recipient?) in something more akin to a consentual kidney-donation in a more tightly controlled situation with a quicker turn-around cycle and more responsive monitoring of
both individuals going forward. ... All of this footnote being so much simpler a concept to think than it turned out to write, apologies! (And, again, IANAExpert, so forgive me if I'm not using precise enough language for the field.)
[4] e.g. the times when HIV infections from theraputic donations were rife amongst harmophiliacs/etc. albeit that was primarily blood fractions imported from the US system.
[5] It led to a blanket-ban on donation from
any even-once-practiced UK male bi/homosexual or (aware) female intimate-partner of one. It also can be seen in the UK wishing to avoid donors with travels to the US due to West Nile Virus (and Chik V, Dengue and Zika in some parts) while US-based blood donations are(/were?) heavy on screening out UK-visiting blood because of BSE/CJD threats.
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Topic: Untamed Virus Containment Thread:COVID-19: Lurking Omni-Flu Edition (Read 423879 times)