Kate Garraway offered to donate her blood plasma to husband Derek Draper after she was struck down with coronavirus.
The ‘Good Morning Britain’ presenter’s significant other has been in intensive care since March after he first contracted Covid-19, and Kate has admitted she too was a sufferer but when she recovered she wanted to donate her plasma – which is now being encouraged by the NHS and the government – to try to help Derek.
Derek is still in intensive care in hospital after coming out of a coma last month, but he is now free of coronavirus.
Kate said: "Something I saw which intrigued me was this call out from the government for people to come forward to donate blood, so they can make use of blood plasma. Those who have had Covid and recovered.
"When Derek was very seriously affected by the virus – as in the virus was active, not as he is now – towards the end of April, I was looking for anything that might be able to help.
"I said to the doctors, ‘Could I donate my blood? I’ve had it, I seem to have recovered. Would antibodies that I have be helpful to him?’
"They said, ‘We are months away from being able to be confident that we could, in a sense, clean your blood enough to make sure that only the good antibodies were going in.’
"We know plasma has been really helpful now. And more recently, Derek has had plasma exchanged, to try to support the cleaning up of the system."
Kate asked GMB’s doctor Dr Amir Khan if the UK is in a position where people could donate blood to family members who have coronavirus, admitting "for anybody who has a relative who is sick, it just feels like something you could do to help".
He said: "Definitely. We all want to help people who are suffering from this virus.
"And convalescent plasma therapy, we are really encouraging people to come forward and donate plasma. Because we need more and more of it.
"Particularly if there is a risk of a second wave.
"I really like this idea. It’s one of these old-fashioned kinds of medical therapies that has come back.
"It was first used in the 1800s to treat children with diphtheria, and then again in the 1900s to treat Spanish flu.
"The NHS and the government are really encouraging people who have tested positive for coronavirus, who have thought they’d had it in the past and perhaps have not had a test yet, to come forward and donate their plasma.
"Their antibodies can be used in patients who are particularly unwell in hospital to help treat their infection."
Kate then asked: "That’s great now, but why wasn’t it used before?"
He admitted the evidence has "always been there" but the technology and the donations "haven’t always been there", and he believes it "should’ve been used earlier".