Johns Hopkins researchers have received $35 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for two nationwide clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a convalescent blood plasma outpatient treatment that may help COVID-19 patients' immune systems fight the virus.

The randomized double blind trials totaling 1,100 people will be conducted at over 20 ambulatory clinics in medical centers across the U.S., including the Navajo Nation, and will help researchers determine whether convalescent blood plasma therapy—a transfusion of a blood product from COVID-19 survivors that contains antibodies—can effectively be used to treat people in the early stage of COVID-19 illness or prevent the infection in those at high risk of exposure to the virus at their home or jobs.

Currently, there are no FDA-approved vaccines to prevent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, nor approved treatments for the illness in its earliest stage. There are also no outpatient therapies to prevent hospitalization or death.

"This is a story of great synergy between researchers and institutions to carry out important studies that will inform our nation and the world on how effective plasma can be to prevent COVID-19 and to treat early disease," says Arturo Casadevall, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor who holds joint appointments in Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine. To initiate the clinical trial, Casadevall and his colleagues assembled a broad collaboration of investigators at Johns Hopkins and at participating medical centers across the U.S.

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