Plasma
for Life
How your plasma donation helps
Learn about why it’s important to donate plasma, how your donation helps patients, patient and donor stories/testimonies and more.
What is plasma?
Plasma is the protein-rich liquid in blood that helps other blood components circulate throughout the body. It supports your immune system and helps control excessive bleeding, which is why plasma donations are important to help treat bleeding disorders, liver diseases and many types of cancer.
Plasma helps patients with immune deficiencies, rare blood disorders, various cancers, tetanus infections, nervous system disorders, bleeding disorders, kidney and liver diseases, severe burns, surgeries, newborns with Rh disease and much more.
COVID-19 and convalescent plasma
We have been responsible for supplying convalescent plasma to Canadian physicians caring for patients with COVID-19 in the context of three Health Canada approved clinical trials: CONCOR-1, CONCOR-Kids, and REMAP-CAP. A clinical trial is a scientific experiment in which a group of patients are given an experimental treatment to determine whether those patients have better outcomes compared to other patients who don’t receive the experimental treatment.
The Canadian clinical trials are led by principal investigators – scientists – who are external to Canadian Blood Services. The clinical trial investigators have confirmed that they have collected the data needed to complete their research. As such, there is no longer a need to collect convalescent plasma to support these clinical trials. Learn more about these Canadian clinical trials.
The CONCOR-Donor study is another study that is actively recruiting participants. Learn more about the CONCOR-Donor study.