Approve Convalescent Plasma as an authorized treatment option for COVID-19 in Canada.
The Issue
Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an authorized treatment for COVID-19 in many countries around the world including USA. FDA approved it's use in August. In Canada, convalescent plasma has not been authorized as a treatment option. Health Canada has only authorized clinical trial use - the CONCOR-1 study - which means very few people have access to it as you have to be part of a Clinical Trial Group or a doctor has to request a single patient emergency access. How rare is it to receive this treatment in Canada and perhaps why you haven't heard of it? Well only 40 hospitals across Canada are participating and they intend to include only 1200 COVID-19 patients over 18 months. To put this in context, Canada has had over 264,000 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, over 10,000 deaths and currently over 38,000 active cases. It basically means you have to be lucky to receive. With Covid-19 numbers increasing everywhere in Canada with the onset of the 2nd Wave, we need all the options we can get, NOW!
Link to information on the status of Convalescent Therapy in Canada;
https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2020/72957a-eng.php
Why am I pushing for this? Well I am a COVID-19 survivor and I owe it to Convalescent Plasma Therapy, this is my way of paying it forward. I am 50 with no underlying conditions and healthy yet I ended up hospitalized and on an oxygen machine with my condition worsening day by day. The only reason I was able to walk out of the hospital in 6 days instead of much longer or worse never leaving, was my access to Convalescent Plasma Therapy. I was luckily identified as an ideal candidate for a trial they were running at the hospital. How lucky was I? I was only the second person to receive in Durham region. Let me reiterate, COVID has been around for 10 months in a region of 700,000 people where they have had over 3000 reported cases with close to 200 deaths and I was only the 2nd person to receive.
What is Convalescent Plasma Therapy? They take blood plasma from someone who has recovered from COVID-19 and then transfuse it back to someone who is suffering from moderate to severe complications. The idea is the antibodies from someone who has recovered will help to kill off the virus.
My Personal Story? For those who have not read my Linkedin or Facebook posts. I received the Plasma transfusion on a Wednesday night when I had the oxygen at 6L per minute. I was hooked up to IV's and an oxygen percentage monitor, could barely sit up, barely talk and barely walk without assistance. 14 hours after receiving a transfusion of 2 units of the blood plasma, I was off of the oxygen machine breathing on my own, was able to sit up and walk around with no assistance. The nurses and doctors were amazed as was I by the dramatic improvement. I was discharged the next day and have now been home since Oct 16th, long way to go to get back to 100%, but out of the hospital and slowly recovering. Here is a link to my Linkedin article for a more detailed description of my story.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-19-convalescent-plasma-therapy-ray-pathak-fip-cipt-cipp-c
I can only speak to my personal experience, note I am not a doctor, and there is no guarantee that it would work this dramatically for everyone however even if it could reduce someone's hospitalization or save just one person in 10, wouldn't that be worth it? If it worked for me why couldn't it work for others? I was lucky to receive, should we be waiting to be lucky? Shouldn't everyone have access to this option?More importantly if this has been approved in other countries in EU, Asia and USA, why can it not be approved for treatment in Canada for Canadians? Are our standards that different from the USA and FDA? Why isn't this more widely available in Canada? If you or your loved ones were hospitalized with COVID, wouldn't you want access to this Therapy after hearing about how dramatically it helped me?
The ask is to help me send this message to the federal minister of health, the provincial minister of health, the premier of Ontario and the Prime Minister of Canada - make Convalescent Plasma more widely available by approving it as a therapy for COVID-19 in Canada like it is in the USA. As our number of positive tests increase, hospitalizations increase and deaths increase - there is no time to waste as we are in extraordinary times which call for extraordinary measures to reduce hospitalizations times and death rates - which is the approval of Convalescent Therapy in Canada for the treatment of COVID-19. Let's not delay like we did Rapid Tests. I believe lives are dependant on this and any delay will cost lives. How many lives could have been saved if it were already available over the last 10 months? WE NEED THIS APPROVED NOW!
Ray
The Issue
Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an authorized treatment for COVID-19 in many countries around the world including USA. FDA approved it's use in August. In Canada, convalescent plasma has not been authorized as a treatment option. Health Canada has only authorized clinical trial use - the CONCOR-1 study - which means very few people have access to it as you have to be part of a Clinical Trial Group or a doctor has to request a single patient emergency access. How rare is it to receive this treatment in Canada and perhaps why you haven't heard of it? Well only 40 hospitals across Canada are participating and they intend to include only 1200 COVID-19 patients over 18 months. To put this in context, Canada has had over 264,000 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, over 10,000 deaths and currently over 38,000 active cases. It basically means you have to be lucky to receive. With Covid-19 numbers increasing everywhere in Canada with the onset of the 2nd Wave, we need all the options we can get, NOW!
Link to information on the status of Convalescent Therapy in Canada;
https://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2020/72957a-eng.php
Why am I pushing for this? Well I am a COVID-19 survivor and I owe it to Convalescent Plasma Therapy, this is my way of paying it forward. I am 50 with no underlying conditions and healthy yet I ended up hospitalized and on an oxygen machine with my condition worsening day by day. The only reason I was able to walk out of the hospital in 6 days instead of much longer or worse never leaving, was my access to Convalescent Plasma Therapy. I was luckily identified as an ideal candidate for a trial they were running at the hospital. How lucky was I? I was only the second person to receive in Durham region. Let me reiterate, COVID has been around for 10 months in a region of 700,000 people where they have had over 3000 reported cases with close to 200 deaths and I was only the 2nd person to receive.
What is Convalescent Plasma Therapy? They take blood plasma from someone who has recovered from COVID-19 and then transfuse it back to someone who is suffering from moderate to severe complications. The idea is the antibodies from someone who has recovered will help to kill off the virus.
My Personal Story? For those who have not read my Linkedin or Facebook posts. I received the Plasma transfusion on a Wednesday night when I had the oxygen at 6L per minute. I was hooked up to IV's and an oxygen percentage monitor, could barely sit up, barely talk and barely walk without assistance. 14 hours after receiving a transfusion of 2 units of the blood plasma, I was off of the oxygen machine breathing on my own, was able to sit up and walk around with no assistance. The nurses and doctors were amazed as was I by the dramatic improvement. I was discharged the next day and have now been home since Oct 16th, long way to go to get back to 100%, but out of the hospital and slowly recovering. Here is a link to my Linkedin article for a more detailed description of my story.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-19-convalescent-plasma-therapy-ray-pathak-fip-cipt-cipp-c
I can only speak to my personal experience, note I am not a doctor, and there is no guarantee that it would work this dramatically for everyone however even if it could reduce someone's hospitalization or save just one person in 10, wouldn't that be worth it? If it worked for me why couldn't it work for others? I was lucky to receive, should we be waiting to be lucky? Shouldn't everyone have access to this option?More importantly if this has been approved in other countries in EU, Asia and USA, why can it not be approved for treatment in Canada for Canadians? Are our standards that different from the USA and FDA? Why isn't this more widely available in Canada? If you or your loved ones were hospitalized with COVID, wouldn't you want access to this Therapy after hearing about how dramatically it helped me?
The ask is to help me send this message to the federal minister of health, the provincial minister of health, the premier of Ontario and the Prime Minister of Canada - make Convalescent Plasma more widely available by approving it as a therapy for COVID-19 in Canada like it is in the USA. As our number of positive tests increase, hospitalizations increase and deaths increase - there is no time to waste as we are in extraordinary times which call for extraordinary measures to reduce hospitalizations times and death rates - which is the approval of Convalescent Therapy in Canada for the treatment of COVID-19. Let's not delay like we did Rapid Tests. I believe lives are dependant on this and any delay will cost lives. How many lives could have been saved if it were already available over the last 10 months? WE NEED THIS APPROVED NOW!
Ray
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Petition created on November 8, 2020