While treating Covid19 patients this last few weeks I realized some investigational treatments are not accesible or equitable, either because the structure needed is not in place or the clinical trials have not open in a fair amount of european centers.
The idea of building a european biobank network of Covid19 biological materials (convalescent plasma, whole blood, nasopharyngeal secretions, sputum..) will not only reinforce and accelerate research but also allow investigational treatments as convalescent plasma accessible to everyone in need.
Many EU countries have the expertise and structure needed as they already have biobanks created for other diseases, as for instance oncologic diseases. Using this knowledge we could create a biobank network for Covid19 that could be used for research and treatment within and across EU countries, meaning that for exemple a critical patient in the south of Spain could have access to convalescent plasma from other part of Spain, as well as a citizen from other neighbour country where either the numbers of recovered Covid patients are very low or there is no structure in place for donation, collection and distribution of plasma, could also have access to this treatment. Furthermore the European Commission, DG DIGIT, is developing a database to support the monitoring of convalescent plasma donation and use which will safeguard this investigational approach.
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