On Sunday, the Libyan National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced that the ‘National Committee for Biosafety and Bioethics’ had approved blood plasma treatments for COVID-19 patients.
The NCDC stated that it had submitted a proposal to inject critical cases with blood plasma in the hopes that the antibodies from successfully recovered patients would help patients currently being treated for the virus.
The Center said that prior consent would be needed before the transfusion and underlined the importance of ensuring that the plasma samples are free from any other infectious diseases.
Studies have shown that the use of plasma – a fluid in the blood filled with antibodies – has already proven effective in treating other infectious diseases, such as Ebola and SARS. Several countries worldwide, including the United States, China, France, the UAE, and India, have started clinical trials of the blood plasma treatment.
