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ABC/Ida Mae Astute(LOS ANGELES) — Tom Hanks is doing what he can to help others after recovering from COVID-19.
The star, who announced his positive diagnosis in early March while filming in Australia, shared an update with fans that he donated plasma last week in the hopes of helping others fighting the disease.
“Here’s last week’s bag of plasma. Such a bag! After the paperwork, it’s as easy as taking a nap,” the 63-year-old actor tweeted on Wednesday, thanking doctors at UCLA.
This came just days after Hanks expressed that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, who also recovered from the novel coronavirus, wanted to donate their blood.
“A lot of the question is — is what now? What do we do now? Is there something we can do? And, in fact, we just found out that we do carry the antibodies,” he said while appearing on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” podcast.
“We have not only been approached, we have said, ‘Do you want our blood? Can we give plasma?'” he continued. “And, in fact, we will be giving it now to the places that hope to work on what I would like to call the ‘Hank-ccine.'”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Convalescent plasma — blood from survivors of the virus that contains antibodies to the disease — is being used by researchers in hopes that it “can be given to people with severe COVID-19 to boost their ability to fight the virus.”
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