It is a race against time. With the vaccine’s arrival still far on the horizon, several teams of researchers around the world are studying alternative therapies capable of helping to combat the covid-19 pandemic. All of them are based on existing medications or treatments, which have proven to be effective for certain diseases and which experts are looking for to have effects against the new coronavirus. Here are a few under discussion.
Experimental blood therapy
What if the secret lies in recovered patients? The question gave rise to the work of several countries in search of a therapy based on blood transfusion. Once recovered from covid-19, the patient’s plasma could transmit the necessary antibodies to aid the recovery of other users. The therapy is still only in the experimental phase, but in the opinion of the president of the Portuguese Institute of Blood and Transplantation (IPST), “it will allow a recovered donor to save an infected patient”. What “contains a very interesting solidarity in itself,” said Maria Antónia Escoval, in an interview with DN.
Read more in Portuguese in Diário de Notícias.
