NEW DELHI: In the US, the FDA has begun case-by-case approval of the use of blood plasma of a recovered patient for the treatment of some Covid-19 patients.The treatment is based on the possibility that the plasma obtained from a donor recovered patient would contain antibodies that helped in negating the virus. These antibodies could help the receiving patient to better fight the virus. plasma therapy . The whole blood or plasma from such people is taken, and the plasma is then injected in critically ill patients so that the antibodies are transferred and boost their fight against the virus.Two limited trials — in the US and China — have shown promising results, with the findings published in the Journal of American Medical Network. In the Chinese study at the Shenzhen Third People's Hospital in Shenzhen, five critically ill patients, in the age-group 35-65, including 2 women, showed improvement after being administered with the blood plasma of recovered Covid-19 patients. In the US studies, the Houston Methodist Hospital conducted a similar procedure on two critically ill patients. The authors of the Chinese study have now called for a randomised trial, a common practice to gauge the true efficacy of treatment. Treatment using blood plasma was also conducted in the 2005 SARS outbreak in Hong Kong and the 2009 H1N1 outbreak.India has the facility to extract the plasma from the blood but has not conducted this procedure for Covid-19 treatment yet, as it needs the approval of the Drug Controller General of India for removal of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients.