Hadassah Treats COVID-19 Patient With New Concentrated Passive Vaccine

by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman   June 24, 2020

Hadassah Medical Center has treated its first COVID-19 patient with a new “passive vaccine” that the hospital developed in conjunction with Israeli biopharmaceutical firm Kamada. According to Hadassah head Zeev Rotstein, “the patient reacted positively.”

He said: “She started to improve hemodynamically… We have our fingers crossed for the successful treatment of this patient.”

Though he could not share details about the patient, he described her as a young woman suffering from several underlying medical conditions. She has been hospitalized for weeks and is intubated. He said other treatments have not shown any results.

The antibody (immunoglobulin or IgG) concentrate was developed using plasma that Hadassah harvested from recovered corona patients: those who had the disease and now test negative for the virus. 

Those who develop any virus, including the novel coronavirus, develop special antivirus proteins or antibodies in their plasma, which could therefore help sick patients, cope with the disease.

the disease, and your immune system creates antibodies to protect you.

Hadassah was able to collect 40 liters of plasma – enough to produce serum for as many as 70 patients.

Although this is the first antibody concentrate administered to a patient, several Israeli patients have been treated with frozen plasma via transfusion. Back in April, a 29-year-old haredi coronavirus patient, who was in serious condition and being treated at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, reportedly stabilized after receiving multiple doses of plasma from a donor who recovered from coronavirus, a spokesperson for the hospital told the Post.

Before being able to donate plasma, a patient must wait 14 days from the time he or she was confirmed as being negative for coronavirus via two separate swab tests.