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PGIMER begins trials for plasma therapy to cure Covid-19 patients
The collaborative departments for this trial are internal medicine, anaesthesia and intensive care, transfusion medicine, endocrinology, virology and community medicine.
After the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research received a nod for conducting trials for the convalescent plasma therapy on critical patients of Covid-19, the institute has started calling up recovered patients for donation of plasma.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had okayed the idea last Friday.
The plasma therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from Covid-19 and transfusing those antibodies into an active coronavirus patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection.
The Union health ministry last week had warned against the use of the therapy, saying it was at an experimental stage and had the potential to cause life-threatening complications.
The hospital, however, will go ahead with the process. Since the exact role of this therapy in the treatment of positive patients is still debatable, the ICMR has decided to conduct a multicentric study to clarify its role on the patients.
The collaborative departments for this trial are internal medicine, anaesthesia and intensive care, transfusion medicine, endocrinology, virology and community medicine.
“We have contacted around seven recovered patients who have sought time to take the decision,” Dr Ratti Ram Sharma, head, department of transfusion medicine said.
The study is aimed at assessing the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit complications in Covid-19 patients, he said.
