“It’s no wonder that people who used to work a lot, who are now weakened, can’t work and can’t afford to look for treatments elsewhere,” he said.
“It’s a completely rational response to a situation like this. But people could go bankrupt by accessing these treatments, for which there is no limited evidence of efficacy. “
Apheresis involves putting needles in each arm and the blood passes through a filter, separating the red blood cells from the plasma. The plasma is filtered before being recombined with red blood cells and returned to the body through a different vein.
The investigation found that Gitte Boumeester, a practicing psychiatrist in Almelo, the Netherlands, spent more than € 50,000 (£ 42,376) on treatment in Cyprus.
“I would have sold my house to improve”
Chris Witham, a 45-year-old businessman who is ill with Covid of Bournemouth, who last year spent about £ 7,000 on apheresis treatment in Germany, said: “I would have sold my house and given it away for to improve, without a good thought. “
Neither Miss Boumeester nor Mr. Witham saw an improvement in symptoms, but six people contacted by the BMJ said they believed the treatment had helped.
Last February, Dr. Beate Jaeger, an internal medicine doctor, began treating long-suffering Covid patients with apheresis at her clinic in Mulheim, Germany, after reading reports that Covid causes problems with blood clotting.
He told the BMJ that he has now treated thousands of people at his clinic and, while accepting that the treatment was experimental, said the trials took too long when the pandemic had left patients desperate.
Patients set up websites to raise funds
The research also found that apheresis and associated travel costs are so expensive that patients are setting up fundraising pages on websites like GoFundMe to raise money.
Doctors are also concerned about the lack of follow-up care of patients when they leave clinics after receiving anticoagulant medications.
Robert Ariens, a professor of vascular biology at the University of Leeds School of Medicine, said: “They [microclots] it may be a biomarker of disease, but how do we know they are causal?
“If we don’t know the mechanisms by which microcoagules form and whether or not they cause the disease, it seems premature to design a treatment to remove the microcoagules.”
The investigation was published in the BMJ and aired on ITN News.