The Global Guardians: Chilean doctors use plasma to treat COVID-19 patients
Global Stringer
South America;Chile
05:36

Raimundo Gacitua and Carolina Selman Bravo are doctors for the Arturo Lopez Perez Foundation in Santiago, Chile. At the end of March, they were inspired by the research made by Chinese doctors who used convalescent plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to treat those still infected. Without vaccines and artificial antibodies, they hope to use this therapy to fight the pandemic in Chile. At first, the estimated plasma donor number was around 100. To their surprise, this number rose to 450 as the research went on. Luis Eduardo Salas is one of these donors. After recovering from COVID-19, he received a message asking if he's willing to donate plasma and he agreed without hesitation. Encouraged by the preliminary results from China, Raimundo and Carolina hope this treatment will decrease the mortality of COVID-19 in Chile.