MLB star partnering with medical expert to push people to do a blood plasma therapy trial
'The more people we have that can do the trial, we can get more info,' the MLB star said
Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Didi Gregorius and Dr. Shmuel Shoham of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explain how blood plasma therapy can play a role in 'prevention and treatment' for coronavirus.
Baseball star Didi Gregorius “wants to use his platform” to encourage people to do a trial for blood plasma therapy to help fight the coronavirus.
“We think that it has a potential as a prevention and as a treatment,” Dr. Shmuel Shoham told FOX Business’ “Varney & Co" in a joint appearance with the shortstop on Thursday.
After giving blood plasma therapy to hundreds of thousands of hospitalized people, medical professionals discovered the process has the best chance of working when given "early.”
“We’re trying to push it further, even a little bit beyond early, in terms of even before they are in the hospital to see if we can prevent people from going on to needing hospitalization in the first place,” Shoham said.
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Shoham explained how blood plasma therapy works.
“So, somebody who has had the virus and they have recovered, they have antibodies in their body. We then take their blood, get the plasma part of the blood ... and then we transfuse that to a person that either has a high-risk exposure to somebody with coronavirus or somebody who has the infection but isn’t severe enough to require hospitalizations," Shoham said.
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While the Phillies' 2020 shortstop is pushing for people to participate in the blood plasma therapy trial, he said that while he has a chronic kidney condition, he is not in the trial because he has not tested positive for coronavirus.
“I think that’s why we partnered up,” Gregorius said, referring to Shoham. “I’m trying to use my platform to get more people, you know, to do the trial. You know, the more people we have that can do the trial, we can get more info.
“But, for me, it is really important. It is like the hand helping out the other one. You know you got to help yourself and people in the community so you want everything to go back to normalcy, back to the way it used to be.”
Gregorius's comments come on the heels of the first COVID-19 vaccine being administered in the U.S.
The U.S. has been reporting new record highs in coronavirus-related hospitalizations, according to data provided by The COVID Tracking Project, and hospital systems across the country have warned about nearing or reaching full capacity.
FOX Business' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.