Baptist Memorial Healthcare received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval Tuesday to use plasma full of antibodies from recovered novel coronavirus patients to treat those currently ill.

The first treatment could happen as soon as Wednesday afternoon, one of the health system's leading doctors told reporters during an afternoon conference call.

Dr. Stephen Threlkeld, an infectious disease expert with Baptist Health, said the treatment is probably one of the best options available to coronavirus patients. He said the health system is actively seeking people who have recovered from the virus to donate plasma. Baptist also revealed this week that it is using the anti-malarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat high-risk patients.

The treatment, also known as convalescent plasma, works like this: the blood-borne antibodies to the virus are harvested from recovered patients and then put in the blood of those fighting the illness. It is has been used for decades to treat other infectious diseases.

In a small study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it was revealed that 10 patients who received the transfusion started to recover and saw lung capacity improvement. No serious side affects or reactions were observed.

Threlkeld said the amount of people who have recovered from the virus throughout the Baptist systems, which encompasses Western Tennessee, Eastern Arkansas and Northern Mississippi, is increasing. With that uptick in recoveries, more plasma is going to be available to use.

He noted that there's a need to increase the amount of people in the Mid-South as well as nationwide that are being tested for antibodies. That would show whether herd-immunity has developed and expand the number of people available who could potentially donate plasma.

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com.