Hyderabad: Plasma therapy in corporate hospitals sought

Hyderabad: Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT) is being sought by family members of critical patients being treated in corporate hospitals in twin-cities. In some cases, it is the family members of the patient itself who are pleading to the doctors to explore plasma treatment if possible.

Elaborating details, a CEO of a corporate hospital said that they are facing this situation of late.

" Family members of a patient, who was on ventilator for the last few days, had requested us to try CPT on him. We told them to enquire with Gandhi hospital, which had done similar treatment after getting due permission from ICMR. At this stage, clinical trials are going on, the efficacy of the plasma therapy around the country after which the centre might take a decision to use this form of treatment or not on Covid patients," the CEO said.

It may be mentioned here that plasma therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from Covid-19 and transfusing those antibodies into an active Covid-19 patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection. Plasma is to be collected from donors 28 days after they make a complete recovery from illness or are symptom free and have more than the required level of antibodies to fight the virus.

Meanwhile, messages urging Covid-19 recovered individuals, who had completed the 28-day period, to come forward for plasma blood donation had been doing rounds on messaging and social media platforms. Family members and relatives of serious patients are forwarding these messages in groups and known circles to find a donor.

While until now only Gandhi hospital was given the nod to try CPT on a few individuals with mostly positive results, one or two corporate hospitals have also come forward to do the same.

Sources from a leading hospital with multiple branches in the city stated that they are doing plasma therapy on selective patients and not all. The hospital is setting up its own plasma bank by contacting Covid recovered patients to come forward and donate their blood that might be helpful for critical patients.

The Health Ministry recently warned against its use, saying that plasma therapy was at an experimental stage and has the potential to cause life-threatening complications. ICMR has taken up a multi-centre clinical trial of CPT in selected hospitals and institutions across the country from May. With its approval the treatment was done on more than 350 patients so far in the country and the trials are likely to wind up soon after the targeted 450 count is reached.

Experts stated that ICMR is likely to announce the results of CPT trials in the next two to three weeks However, some State governments, including Rajasthan, Punjab, Maharashtra and Delhi, have shown keenness for plasma therapy treatment and started their own plasma banks and selective treatments already.