Kent NHS patients benefit from UK-sourced plasma

The antibodies in plasma are separated out of red blood cells and used for lifesaving medicines

NHS patients in Kent are receiving lifesaving medicines made from the blood plasma of UK donors for the first time in 25 years after a long-standing ban was lifted.

Locally-sourced immunoglobulin, which can only be made from human blood, has so far been used to treat more than 200 people in the county, reducing reliance on imports.

A NHS Blood and Transplant spokesperson said: "The news is important because there is a global shortage of plasma medicines."

Denise Dowsing, from Maidstone, who has common variable immune deficiency, said: "This medicine changed my life - I think it has saved my life".

Karen Edmunds, from Ashford, said her health was transformed when she started on plasma medicine after a life-time of infections and illnesses.

She gives herself a weekly home infusion of immunoglobulin.

She said: "It feels safer and more convenient to get it at home.

"It's meant I am able to fight off infections more easily."

Plasma makes up 55% of human blood and contains antibodies which strengthen or stabilise the immune system.

The lifesaving medicines, most important of which is immunoglobulin, can only be made from human blood

The antibodies are separated out and made into medicines which treat people with life-limiting illnesses such as immune deficiencies.

Over the past three years, blood donors in Kent have supplied around 17,000 litres of plasma, enough to make around 7,600 bottles of immunoglobulin.

This could save or improve around 230 lives a year, according to the NHS.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust treated 92 patients with immunoglobulin in the last reported year.

Dr Susan Walsh, chief executive officer of Immunodeficiency UK, said: "This is a historic moment – patients from Kent can now get lifesaving and life-improving immunoglobulin medicine made from the plasma of UK blood and plasma donors."