President Trump announced Sunday that the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, a remedy that, according to fitness experts, can treat COVID-19.
“Today’s action will greatly expand access to this remedy,” Trump said at a press conference at the White House. “Based on science and data, the FDA has independently decided that the remedy is safe and highly effective.”
The FDA announced some time before Trump’s appearance that he had granted an emergency authorization for experimental treatment, in which doctors draw blood from a patient who has recovered from COVID-19 and whose body has antibodies that he himself created to fight the virus. Doctors then extract the liquid component from the healthy patient’s blood, called plasma, and transfuse it into the blood of those who need treatment.
Doctors have been using convalescent plasma transfusion to treat infectious diseases for over a hundred years. It has not yet been clinically proven to treat coronavirus disease, however, the cure has been shown to be safe. The FDA said there was an explanation for why the remedy may simply shorten recovery time and minimize the severity of the disease, adding that the potential benefits of the cure outweigh the risk.
“We have noticed an improvement of about 35% in the survival of patients who benefited the most from the remedy, who were patients under the age of 80, who are not breathing synthetically,” health and social services secretary Alex Azar said On Sunday. “We dream of the progression of the drug with 35% relief in mortality. This is a major advance in patients’ remedies, it is a major step forward.”
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn added that “we are waiting for more data, we will continue to collect data, but this obviously meets the criteria we have set for emergency use authorization.”
When pressured, Hahn called Trump’s approval of the remedy “very effective,” saying that “if you are one of 35 people out of a hundred who fix yourself … that’s why it’s pretty vital for that user in your family. “
The announcement follows the Democratic National Convention where high-ranking Democrats said Trump had “unfortunately failed” to prevent the coronavirus pandemic. The Republican National Convention begins Monday and Trump is expected to promote his administration’s progress in getting rid of the coronavirus.
Coronavirus has inflamed approximately 5.7 million other people in the United States and there have been more than 176,000 COVID-19-related deaths.