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A national coalition, including Mayo Clinic, is launching a nationwide push for plasma donations to help fight COVID-19. The campaign has some big names behind it.
Today a coalition of more than 30 organizations is launching a national donor recruitment campaign — "The Fight Is In Us" — with the goal of connecting survivors with patients at licensed blood and plasma donor centers.
The coalition has enlisted some big names, including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, Helen Mirren, Awkwafina, Ryan Tedder and Ken Jeong, along with a number of NBA players. (Not to mention Mayo Clinic.)
The campaign was created to maximize the individual and societal benefit of convalescent plasma by encouraging plasma donations by those who have recovered from COVID-19. Plasma from those who have survived COVID-19 includes antibodies that could help others fight the virus.
In the coming days, you'll see ads, videos and social media posts promoting "The Fight Is In Us." If you are a survivor or know a survivor, you're encouraged to consider donating plasma and helping to spread the word. Those simple actions could help current and future COVID-19 patients who are counting on all of donors to help them defeat COVID-19.
Read the news release below from "The Fight Is In Us."
Calling all COVID-19 Survivors: Now you could help others defeat it
Time is of the essence.
If you or someone you know has recovered from COVID-19, the vital antibodies in your blood plasma could be used to help another patient fight off the disease or to create a medicine to potentially treat it.
Please join us to unite against COVID-19 by donating your plasma.
Notable voices including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, Helen Mirren, Awkwafina, Ryan Tedder, and Dr. Ken Jeong, as well as players from the National Basketball Association, are supporting a broad coalition of the world’s leading medical and research institutions, blood centers, life science companies, technology companies, philanthropic organizations and COVID-19 survivor groups.
Watch: "Your Plasma Can Help Us All Fight Back"
This coalition has launched "The Fight Is In Us" campaign to drive awareness and recruit COVID-19 survivors to donate their blood plasma to potentially help save lives. The public-private partnership that resulted in "The Fight Is In Us" is a massive global public health undertaking, fueled by a shared responsibility to make a difference.
Recovered individuals in communities across the United States hold an important key to accelerating progress in the development of potential treatment options for COVID-19. COVID-19 survivors are urged to recognize the fight within themselves and pay it forward by donating plasma to potentially help someone else in their own fight.
One vital resource, two valuable approaches:
Donating blood plasma is a safe process that has been used for more than one hundred years to help save lives. Thousands of people safely and painlessly donate every day. The coalition partners are working on two approaches for treating COVID-19, both of which urgently require collection of convalescent plasma from survivors.
1. Direct transfusion — Blood donor centers throughout the country are currently collecting convalescent plasma from COVID-19 survivors that is being directly infused into current patients as part of the Expanded Access Program for convalescent plasma. This program is being administered by Mayo Clinic with authorization from the Food & Drug Administration. The safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma are being evaluated through multiple clinical trials in different populations.
2. Hyperimmune globulin (H-Ig) medicine — Convalescent plasma is being collected for the development of a potential treatment that is currently being manufactured and will be studied in clinical trials this summer. Through the manufacturing process, the plasma is pooled, concentrated and purified, resulting in a vial of medicine with consistent levels of antibodies that could make H-Ig easier for hospitals to store and administer to patients. Coalition members developing an H-Ig include the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance (CSL Behring, Takeda, ADMA Biologics, Biopharma Plasma, Biotest, BPL, GC Pharma, LFB, Octapharma and Sanquin) and Grifols.
Racing against time:
The coalition is reaching out to people in the United States who have recovered from COVID-19 to realize the unique strength they have and donate their blood plasma in a race against time.
1. Within survivors’ two-month recovery period — COVID-19 survivors who are willing to donate must do so within two months of their recovery to increase the chance that their blood plasma contains a sufficient concentration of antibodies.
2. In anticipation of seasonal increases in COVID-19 cases — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health experts warn against a second surge of cases this fall in the Northern Hemisphere, making the search for a treatment particularly urgent.
How you can help:
COVID-19 survivors should visit TheFightIsInUs.org to understand if they may be eligible to donate and find a nearby blood or plasma donor center using a simple self-screening tool. With more than 1,600 locations, the coalition aims to make the blood and plasma donation process easy for COVID-19 survivors. Uber Health is providing free, roundtrip Uber rides to and from the donor centers for those who are eligible to donate.
We urge all healthy individuals — whether they have recovered from COVID-19 or not — to donate blood or plasma. Blood and plasma donations benefit thousands of people every day through transfusions or processed into life-saving therapies that treat serious and rare diseases.
If you or someone you know has beat COVID-19, please consider donating your plasma today to potentially share your inner strength with those who need it: www.TheFightIsInUs.org.
Mayo Clinic Media Contact: Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu.
Information in this post was accurate at the time of its posting. Due to the fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific understanding along with guidelines and recommendations may have changed since the original publication date.
Check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for additional updates on COVID-19. For more information and all your COVID-19 coverage, go to the Mayo Clinic News Network and mayoclinic.org.
