A Strategy for SARS-CoV-2 Convalescent Plasma Collection in a Chilean Nation-Wide Blood Bank Network

Background/Case Studies: With SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and the potential use of convalescent plasma, most blood banks were forced to coordinate calling strategies, donor selection, and convalescent plasma production, with no new resources The first infected patient in Chile was reported on March 03, 2020 The objective of this study is to describe our selection strategy and its efficiency Study Design/Methods: The project was approved by the ethics committee In our country, a multicentric nation-wide network of blood banks was created, with eight centers collecting convalescent plasma A donor registration web site was created with volunteer inscription, which had specific questions that could result in an immediate deferral, and this web site was promoted on TV and in social media After that phase, a brief telephonic survey was performed to schedule the date and hour for on-toone interviews, and select potential donors eligible for testing They were tested for HIV, HBV, HCV, HTLV I and II, Chagas disease and syphilis, NAT for HIV, HBV y HCV, anti HLA antibodies and anti SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies PCR for SARS-CoV-2 was performed in all donors with less than 28 days since last symptoms After all these studies, apheresis was indicated for selected donors Results/Findings: From 5008 inscriptions on the web site, 21 1% were deferred automatically at the web site level A total of 1165 volunteers were interviewed in our institution, and, from them, 25 8% were excluded after the questionnaire (73%) or because of poor venous access (27%) From the 864 accepted and tested volunteers, 0 9%were deferred because of microbiological studies, 22 6% for less than 1:320 antibodies titers From 465 women tested, 26 6% were excluded for the presence of anti HLA antibodies Finally, 536 donors were able to proceed with apheresis Conclusions: The 46% from total volunteers were finally able to proceed to apheresis in our institution The cooperative effort between institutions allowed us to start working within four weeks since the first case was reported in our country, with 444 effective apheresis performed over the course of 16 weeks