Front Burner - Could COVID-19 survivor blood keep people safe?

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

As scientists worldwide scramble for COVID-19 treatments and cures, some see promise in antibody-rich plasma of survivors. In Canada and beyond survivors are donating their blood for new, fast-tracked, clinical trials. Today, CBC senior correspondent Susan Ormiston joins us from Washington, D.C., to explain why antibody-rich plasma could be useful in the fight against COVID-19.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hello. Look at it go. Look at it go. When Diana Barron survived coronavirus, she knew she wanted to help out any way that she could. So when she found out that plasma from survivors was needed by doctors for clinical trials, she signed up to donate right away. It was actually one of the most joyful experiences

of my entire life. And I include marriage and giving birth to my two wonderful children and all of those things in that. All over the world and here in Canada too, scientists are racing to find treatments and build immunity and the power of antibodies is one of the avenues being investigated. CBC senior correspondent Susan Ormiston has been covering the story. She's with me now from Washington DC to explain why antibody-rich plasma could be used in the fight against COVID-19. This is Frontburner. Hi, Susan. It's so nice to have you back on the podcast.

Hi, Jamie. Thanks. So I know that you're under quarantine right now, although the last time that we spoke to you, you were also under quarantine. This is a different one because you traveled to New York for a story. This is part of the CBC's rules and regulations right now around COVID-19 just to make sure that everybody stays safe and healthy. But I know that when you were in New York, you interviewed members of a group called the Survivor Corps. And tell me about them. Who are they? Yeah, you know, it's a band of enthusiastic, empowered survivors of coronavirus founded by Diana Barrett, whom you mentioned. She got the disease, the virus, at a business meeting on March 9th. With eight people,

seven of them got the virus, and one of them actually died. I woke up on Friday the 13th, and you can read into that what you like, with 102 fever and the feeling like I had an anvil on my chest. I immediately, I knew I had a respiratory infection. So she was cooped up for 18 days in her bedroom in Long Island. And she's a real doer. I mean, you just have to meet her and she just exudes energy. You know, she can handle this. But it was a long, lonely and very frightening experience. And during that time, she said she had lots of time and she thought, gee, I'm going to be one of the first people to survive coronavirus if I get through this. And that means

I may have these precious antibodies and I want to do something about it. So she came up with a Facebook group initially, Survivor Corps. She got like 30,000 members in three weeks. And now it's evolved into websites and partnerships. And it lays out all the clinical trials that are happening that survivors with antibodies could participate in. It's a vital, vital service now. Can you tell me more about these antibodies? We hear a lot about this, the idea that antibodies and particularly antibodies and plasma could help against the coronavirus. How? Well, taking a step back for a moment, plasma is a component of all our blood. It's the yellowish liquid rich in protein that can be separated out when you give a blood donation. And it's kind of

like a highway carrying nutrients and hormones and proteins to other parts of your body. And it also carries those vital antibodies that build up when you have a disease and can help protect you in the future. tell us about the immunity of people who've gone through COVID-19. And they want to capture that plasma and possibly use it in two ways really initially. One, as a care use for those who already have the disease and are in hospital, and possibly also inject it into those most exposed, like doctors and nurses and frontline workers, to see if it might help them build their own immunity and fight off the disease. When I got the virus, my body figured out a way to create those antibodies. And they can be transferred to somebody whose body was unable to. And there are trials to see if maybe maybe can help people at the beginning of their illness to stave off eventually ending up on a ventilator. So right now it's the best. So interesting. So it could be used as both a treatment and as a method of a possible prevention.

Yeah. Prophylactic really. This term convalescent, convalescent plasma, what does that mean exactly? Well, it's kind of a basket term for people who survived coronavirus in this case. So they've had the disease, their bodies have naturally built up antibodies, hopefully high antibodies, and they now exist in the plasma and can be extracted and possibly given to patients who are ill. What do we know about the research, and I know that this disease is very new, but the research around the immunity that people can build up to the coronavirus once they get it, this idea that they develop these antibodies?

I think from many doctors I've spoken to, there's a lot we don't know about the immunity potential from coronavirus. You know, it is in the family that SARS came from and convalescent plasma was used in the SARS epidemic and Ebola and H1N1, you know, back in 2009, I believe. But it's not conclusive that it works through COVID-19. The doctors say, you know, there have been a couple small studies in Asia and a few in the US, but there's nothing with a really big random control trial where you can actually verify the results of plasma, whether it works in sick patients or not. So that's what they're trying to do is come up in rapid speed. I mean, these trials normally take six months to 18 months to develop. There are many of them going on, including a large one in Canada that's being

developed in a couple of weeks, and that donors will begin participating in right away. and that donors will begin participating in right away. Can you tell me a little bit more about this kind of testing that's happening, first in the U.S. and then we can move on to Canada? Yeah, in U.S. there have been about 100 groups of health care, university hospitals, medical centers, who have sort of banded together under an umbrella called the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project. That's just on the plasma alone. And they're building up blood banks, like from Diana Barrett, who went last week to give her

first donation of plasma. They are looking at that plasma. They're testing it. Why? To see if they actually did have COVID-19, to verify that, to also screen for a few other potentially harmful things that might be in the antibodies. And most importantly, Jamie, to see whether your antibodies are strong. They're called high titers. And some people have high titers, meaning a really strong immunity. So when they find those people, like Diana Barrett, by the way, they want to use that type of blood. So not all donors will be eligible. In fact, in Diana's case,

her doctor said, you know, your plasma is liquid gold, because it has high titers, and because she's what they call a universal plasma donor. So her plasma can be given to almost all patients. It turns out that I am a universal donor, which is only four to five percent of the population. So as my doctor said, my plasma is like liquid gold. So when I got that news on Monday, I made the first appointment possible at the New York Blood Center and I went in on Wednesday and it was. And the other thing that they're going to do with that kind of testing, Jamie, is try to answer a bunch of other questions like how long would immunity last? Three months, six months?

How strong is it? Are you really immune indefinitely like you are with measles for lifetime? These are all questions that will come from testing those antibodies in people's plasma. You know, I was not a COVID-19 researcher until three or four weeks ago, or maybe beginning of March. I can't even, I don't even know what the date is today. But what we're trying to do with convalescent plasma is use the antibodies that are present in people who've recovered to treat others. So you can use it, for example, to give it to healthcare workers or nursing home patients before they get sick to try to prevent them from getting ill. You can

give it to healthcare workers or people who've been exposed but haven't become ill yet. You can use it for people who are in the hospital who are sick, who don't need a respirator right now, but may ultimately need a respirator. So you can see if it can prevent them from requiring a respirator right now, but may ultimately need a respirator. So you can see if it can prevent them from requiring a respirator. Right. And I imagine these are incredibly important trials that are going on right now, because, you know, the question of whether or not you're immune and for how long you may be immune has so many implications for how we move forward here, how we open back up eventually. It's huge. And in the United States as well,

because they're a little bit ahead in the research because the epidemic has peaked here and has been to such a scale that, you know, it's just a huge pool of potential donors and study. And the NIH in the United States has just launched a trial of 10,000 healthy Americans saying, please come get tested. What we're trying to figure out is how many people have been exposed or infected with

COVID-19 in the general population. That's, you know, the asymptomatic people that we're hearing so much about, which is, as you say, a super interesting and critical question to answer when we talk about how we resume our life after this pandemic. Right, this idea that there are tons of people, we don't really know the answer yet, but tons of people who may have already contracted the coronavirus and might not even know that they had it because they didn't have any symptoms. Exactly.

This also has so many implications for opening up as we get to the other side of this. life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. What's happening here in Canada around this issue around plasma? Yeah, a big test, really massive test involving 40 Canadian hospitals and about five key university medical centers and departments. And they are also galloping along to develop a test with donors with survivors plasma to see again, if that plasma can help in this case with people who are already sick. There's a caveat there, they're looking at people who are in hospital already as potential

recipients. They're probably on some kind of oxygen or breathing aid, but not on a ventilator. And they believe that the antibodies in the plasma would be most beneficial. That's their theory with those types of patients. That's still what things that they're looking at is when are the antibodies going to help the most, but they don't want to give it to people who are very, very ill on ventilators, worried that introducing any kind of antibody into that kind of a system so much, so compromised might actually inflame the virus and cause it to have even more harmful effects. actually inflame the virus and cause it to have even more harmful effects. Right. And I understand that this trial here is expected to start sort of end of April. People can start booking appointments for convalescent plasma donors. That's interesting for me to hear

you say that there are concerns that, you know, there are potential consequences for using this plasma. D dangers, basically. Yeah, I mean, just backing up a step here, you know, people would be interested, you know, in Canada, what they're looking for as donors, survivors, they have to be men under 67, they have to have tested positive for COVID, and have been symptom free for 28 days. So we're in this really interesting time right now, Jamie, because so many people would have caught the disease, you know, mid-March, maybe even late March. So they are just emerging now as survivors and ripe for this kind of study. But yes, there are concerns that this could be harmful. And doctors are, you know, some are calling it even like a Hail Mary or a

last option convalescent plasma because they don't know if it will work, how much it will work, and if it potentially could be harmful. So all these things, they have to march out pretty carefully to watch for any signs of poor side effects. So if you think about someone who's very sick, they have virus in their lungs. If you give them plasma with antibodies in it, it may actually cause their immune system to attack their lungs and make things worse rather than better. We'll never learn that unless we do this in a randomized controlled trial. So we need to have a controlled. You mentioned in the Canadian study that only men are being asked to participate to donate their blood, their plasma. Why? Why is that?

So in the Canadian study, they've chosen to go with men only because in childbearing women, there is potentially some antibodies that could cause a really adverse reaction. really adverse reaction, what they call transfusion-related acute lung injury, trolley, obviously very detrimental and very dangerous for people with coronavirus. And they don't want to take that chance. I spoke with a doctor who's running one of the trials in the US last night, and he said that they are accepting men and women in their studies because they can test for HLA antibodies that may cause the trolley. And so we are accepting women and just testing their plasma to rule that out. Okay, that's fascinating. You know, I know we're in the very early stages of this, but have there been any reports about how convalescent plasma has helped COVID-19 patients specifically? Yeah, I think we have to be really careful here because the studies have been very small. They

have not had the rigor of gold standard clinical trials. But in the few studies where this has been tried, a couple of things have happened. There seem to be indications that patients' outcomes are better. Their lung disease did not progress as much. Again, doctors are very, very hesitant to say this is a game-winner, a game-changer, as the president often says, because they just don't know. So what you have to have is a test with a control group. And in Canada, what they'll be trying to do is take a body of patients that will get convalescent plasma, two thirds of them will get the plasma, and one third will not, in effect, the control

group. And those people will get normal care, you know, high care needed to help them survive, but they wouldn't have the plasma. And in that way, they'll be able to hopefully measure, okay, statistically, did this have an effect and how much? That's so fascinating. I find this whole issue incredibly interesting. You know, the people that you spoke to in New York, part of the Survivor Corps, you know, we obviously don't know yet, you know, what's going to come of all this research.

But, you know, I know you were talking about Diana Barron. Tell me a little bit more about what this means to them to be able to help in this way after going through, you know, a difficult ordeal. I understand some of them were very sick. Yeah, you know, it's amazing to speak with them. I mean, they are so pumped. Today, I'm virus free. And the first thing, this is my first day out of isolation. And again, I'm at the blood bank because I have something inside of me that could potentially save people's lives. And that's the first thing I wanted to do, as many, many survivors want to do. They're pumped to be through the disease. They're pumped to be, hopefully, immune.

One of them, Julie Thayer, talked about how she felt like she had a hazmat suit inside of her walking around now. And hopefully she can maybe give a little bit of that to other people. It makes me feel like I can do something positive to help in this incredibly difficult time. It's like, I feel like we're in a science fiction movie. And I am one of the ones walking around with an immunity, almost like a hazmat suit, And I am one of the ones walking around with an immunity, almost like a hazmat suit inside my body, protecting me. And now I have a chance to help other people get that same protection. You know, it empowers them. And I think what Diana Barrett said to me really resonated.

She said, you know, so many people who have COVID-19 feel so helpless. They feel powerless. They know there is no treatment, so helpless. They feel powerless. They know there is no treatment, no cure. They're scared. They're alone. They're cooped up in their rooms. And when you emerge from that, it's like taking back the power.

It's saying, okay, not only did I beat you, but I'm going to help beat you through other people. So it just gives us the huge, strong motivator. And everyone I spoke to who are these early donors are, you know, almost racing to it. There was a woman who posted on the Survivor Corps Facebook group recently, and she said, she said, I just got my test results back negative for the virus, positive for the antibodies. Here's my blood type. I'll go anywhere.

Wow. It is incredible how, you know, this very difficult time that we're all going through is also bringing out the very best in people. Susan Ormiston, thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay, so Canadians with COVID-19 who want to be considered for the national clinical trial should talk to their doctors to see if they are a good candidate. And any COVID-19 survivors hoping to donate plasma, well, you can find out more about this at the Canadian Blood Services website, blood.ca, where you can join the online registry.

If you're in Quebec, you can take a look at HEMA Quebec for more information. That's all for this week. Front Burner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced this week by Mark Apollonio, Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chao, Shannon Higgins, Allie Janes, and Nahayat Tzouche. Derek Vanderwyk does our sound design, with help this week from Matt Cameron, Ebby and Abdigir, and Mandy Sham. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We're back on Monday and we'll talk to you then. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.