Blood Donations Requested from Recovered Swine Flu Cases in Hong Kong

indigo girl · Aug 28, 2009

Donors flood in for blood drive to save critically ill

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=87043&sid=25171202&con_type=1

The mainland Chinese have used this technique successfully to treat at least one critical bird flu case a few years ago.

A landmark study to determine whether blood from patients who recovered from human swine flu (H1N1) can be prepared as "a treatment of last resort" for critically ill flu patients this winter has attracted 40 volunteers in less than 48 hours.
This comes as the Hospital Authority yesterday said people with flu-like symptoms who turn up at accident and emergency departments should not expect to be automatically tested for H1N1 or treated with antiviral drug Tamiflu.
More than 800 of 8,000 recovered flu victims are being recruited to give blood so that a special swine flu vaccine can be extracted and administered to 63 critically ill patients. Another 63 will be given a "simple immunoglobulin" - which primes immunity but is not specific to human swine flu.
Researcher Ivan Hung Fan-ngai, who is a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Hong Kong University, said: "We had a very good response: 30 to 40 patients who recovered told us they will donate their blood. We are calling donors up instead of them calling us, otherwise it will be chaotic."
He said the donors' ethnicity does not matter, so long as they are Hong Kong identity card holders.
David Hui Sui-cheong, a specialist in respiratory medicine at Chinese University who is not involved in the study, said serum collected from swine flu patients who have recovered will work "if the pandemic becomes aggressive."
He added: "It provides another option for more severe cases."

(hat tip flutrackers/AlaskaDenise)