By Ana Santos Rutschman, Lisa Vertinsky, and Yaniv Heled
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn announced that the FDA had issued emergency use authorization for investigational convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19.
Plasma is the liquid part of blood. Sometimes, for treatment purposes, it is taken from people who have been infected with but recovered from a disease, because it contains antibodies that fought the disease. Doctors then inject this so-called convalescent plasma into patients who currently have a disease in hopes that the antibodies in the plasma can help current patients.