Attempt to make Covid-19 medicine from blood plasma a failure

A year ago, blood bank Sanquin started recruiting donors for an experiment with using blood plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients to make medicine against the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus for vulnerable people. "We must frankly admit that this has failed," professor of infections diseases and microbiology Hans Zaaijer said to De Telegraaf.

"More and more studies indicate that early administration of plasma antibodies has no effect on fighting Covid-19 in high-risk groups such as the elderly, the obese, and lung patients," Zaaijer said to the newspaper.

It was a good idea, administrating concentrated Covid-19 antibodies so that someone remains passively immune, but ultimately not effective, the professor said. "It is disappointing that it does little or nothing," he said.