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AIIMS doc teams up with IIT-Delhi to launch app for patients needing plasma
New Delhi
New Delhi
A resident doctor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has collaborated with IIT-Delhi students to develop an app that enable users to track eligible and willing plasma donors who have recovered from Covid-19 at the hospital.
The app – COPAL-19 -- was launched on the occasion of National Doctor’s Day on Wednesday. The doctor came up with the idea after running into trouble while looking for plasma for one of his seniors.
Convalescent plasma therapy uses the blood component from a recovered person, which is rich in virus-fighting antibodies that boost the immune response of a patient.
“One of my seniors had to be admitted to the intensive care unit in the hospital and his oxygen saturation kept dropping. That’s when the doctors suggested he be given plasma therapy. But even for us doctors it was difficult to get a donor after putting up messages on social media and calling up patients who had been treated at the hospital randomly. We got a donor after 12 hours,” said Dr Abhinav Singh Verma, a resident doctor in the department of neurosurgery at AIIMS.
With no convalescent plasma bank or a dedicated registry in place, the app will help patients in need of the therapy. It will have the names, addresses, contact numbers, and blood groups of patients who have recovered from AIIMS 28 days ago and are willing to donate their plasma.
To ensure that a donor is Covid-19 free before giving the plasma, government guidelines suggest the donation be taken 28 days after the recovery of the patient. And, in case the donation is taken after 14 days, the donor has to test negative twice.
“The app will list details of only those who are willing to donate plasma and have pledged to do so before discharge. When we were searching for plasma for our senior, we realised many people declined to donate,” said Dr Verma. He said the app is open source and databases from other hospitals can be incorporated too.
The Delhi government, encouraged by the results of a small trial at its Lok Nayak hospital, is also in the process of setting up a plasma bank.
However, plasma is still not a proven therapy and the union health ministry allows its use only in Covid-19 patients with moderate symptoms whose oxygen need does not come down despite receiving oxygen support and steroids.
