We are a non-profit initiative, serving as the central node of a network that makes the connection between patients and their families, plasma donors, and hospitals or physicians. Our mission is to make convalescent COVID-19 plasma accessible to as many COVID-19 patients as possible.
How it Began
In early April 2020, Abba Swiatycki and Mordechai Serle fatefully crossed paths. They were each searching for treatments for acutely ill family members who were fighting for their lives in intensive care units. They were told, independently, that convalescent COVID-19 plasma transfusions could help their relatives in theory, but that the plasma simply wasn’t available in their hospitals. Mordechai and Abba initiated a campaign to recruit plasma donors, teaming up with Chaim Lebovits, a longtime volunteer patient advocate who had already been independently recruiting donors for a different hospital. Their collective efforts quickly grew into what is now the Covid Plasma Initiative Foundation.
Barely weeks-old, this initiative has changed the face of COVID-19 treatment in the USA, starting in the Northeast and now spreading beyond. Starting as a grassroots effort, with the help of dozens of dedicated volunteers – from project managers to software developers – as well as non-profit organizations and hospitals, they launched a robust blood plasma donor network that has recruited several thousands of potential donors to date, and is rapidly growing.
The Impact in Treatment
The efforts yielded immediate benefits to hard-hit hospitals, which were stretched heroically thin caring for their unprecedented patient loads, and had little access to the lifesaving antibody-rich plasma they desperately needed to treat critically-ill COVID-19 patients.
The initiative is closely aligned with blood banks, hospitals, non-profits and research centers (including Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, New York Blood Center and many leading hospitals), and directly continues to impact hospitals’ ability to treat coronavirus patients in an unprecedented way, alongside other emerging treatment methods.
Help Us Save Lives
Currently, we are recommending that donors undergo antibody testing through community-based drives and then donate at local blood banks or hospitals.
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