Chandigarh’s first patient, her brother donate blood for plasma therapy to PGI

The therapy involves transfusing the blood plasma of a recovered Covid-19 patient into a critically-ill patient. The plasma of the recovered patient will have antibodies to the pathogen, SARS-CoV-2, which can potentially aid a critically-ill patient in fighting off the infection.

“We have blood from two patients now and we have identified more potential donors and should be able to collect more blood plasma by next week,” said Dr R R Sharma, head of transfusion medicine at PGIMER. The blood for plasma therapy can be donated by a recovered patient only 28 days after their date of recovery. Furthermore, the hospital needs to find a blood type match in the critically-ill patient before transfusing the plasma. “Hopefully, we will be able to make a bank of all blood types soon and start catering to the patients,” says Dr Sharma.

The plasma therapy trails at PGIMER were approved by the ICMR on May 1.