United States has announced an emergency authorisation to use blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a treatment for the disease, which has killed more than 800,000 people around the world.
Governments around the world are renewing efforts — including the reimposition of lockdowns — to contain the virus, which has infected well over 23 million people and killed 813,059 fatalities.
United States has remained the hardest-hit country with more than 176,000 fatalities, and President Donald Trump is under intense pressure to curb the contagion.
President Trump has said that the plasma therapy shows “an incredible rate of success” and “will save countless lives”.
However, his statement went much further than his own health officials’ cautious welcome of the treatment.
Plasma is believed to contain powerful antibodies that can help fight COVID-19 faster, and has already been used on patients in the United States and other countries.
Albeit, the extent of its effectiveness is still being debated by experts and some have warned it could carry side effects.
When challenged by a reporter to explain the contradiction between his confidence in the treatment and the caution among experts, Trump passed the question to one of his experts, then ended the press conference.
As at press time, United States has recorded 5,875,254 coronavirus cases and 180,614 casualties
