india

Updated: Apr 25, 2020 13:51 IST

Jaipur’s Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital is following the footsteps of Delhi, Kerala, and Karnataka and gearing up to administer convalescent plasma therapy to critical coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients. Rajasthan government has sought the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) permission to begin trials.

Clinical trials of convalescent plasma therapy are underway in several countries and states across the country and have shown encouraging results so far, the state government officials said.

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“Plasma therapy could prove beneficial for critical Covid-19 patients and reduce the mortality rate, as no vaccine or anti-viral agents are available yet to treat the viral outbreak,” Dr Sunita Bundas, in-charge of SMS Hospital’s blood bank.

“SMS Hospital doctors, who have recovered from Covid-19, can become donors for patients suffering from the viral infection,” she added.

Dr Sudhir Bhandari, principal of SMS Medical College, however, said that it is premature to comment on the plasma therapy trials.“The process hasn’t yet begun. We’re hopeful of getting the ICMR’s approval. We’ll start the therapy with critical patients,” he said.

The state government has formed a team of doctors from the SMS Hospital to do a feasibility study on plasma therapy on critical patients. The team, comprising Dr Bhandari, Dr Bundas, professor of medicine Dr Raman Sharma and senior physician Dr Ajeet Singh, has agreed to conduct the plasma therapy after conducting research and tests for a week.

“An antibody is a passive vaccine that helps to bring down the viral load in a patient. It’s given via blood transfusion and it fights and neutralises the virus,” Dr Sharma said.

“The concept of plasma therapy is to inject antibodies taken from the plasma of a recovered Covid-19 patient into a positive patient to fight the disease,” he said.

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Dr Sharma pointed out that the convalescent plasma therapy was tried during the Spanish Flu, which ravaged the globe in 1918, and it helped lower the mortality rate by 20%, as per the available data.

“At that time the entire blood from a donor was given to a patient. Now we only take the plasma, anywhere between 300 and 500 milliliters, from the blood and administer it to a patient,” he added.

“The therapy is still at a trial stage. It’s too early to say if it’ll cure Covid-19 patients, but it has shown encouraging results so far,” Dr Bundas said.

In Rajasthan, Covid-19 positive cases continue to rise, as 2,059 positive cases and 32 deaths have been reported to date. Rajasthan ranks fourth in the country after Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi, as far as Covid-19 positive cases are concerned.