Rising Covid cases: Delhi health min urges recovered persons to donate plasma

Convalescent plasma therapy uses a blood component called plasma that is rich in virus-fighting antibodies from a recovered patient to aid the immune response in patients with current infection

With cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on the rise, the Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Monday urged people who have recently recovered from the infection to donate plasma. He said that the donations dropped over the last two months as there were very few eligible donors owing to the low infection rate.

Health minister of Delhi, Satyendar Jain. (HT Photo)

“I will appeal all those who have recovered from Covid-19 now to donate their plasma. What has happened is that there were very few cases over the last two to three months the number of cases were very low, meaning there were very few eligible donors. In the last fifteen days, the number of cases has gone up drastically,” said Jain in a press briefing.

Convalescent plasma therapy uses a blood component called plasma that is rich in virus-fighting antibodies from a recovered patient to aid the immune response in patients with current infection. Scientists still do not agree on whether the therapy actually helps Covid-19 patients.

A study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) found that the treatment was not associated with any reduction in mortality or progression to severe disease. On the contrary, a study by Delhi’s Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences found that plasma therapy helped stabilise the respiratory rate, improve oxygen saturation, and improve the organ failure score that predicts multi-organ failure. Separately, a study by the US healthcare centre Mayo Clinic found that the seven-day mortality rate went down in patients given therapy within three days of diagnosis as compared with patients transfused four or more days after diagnosis.

The Delhi government was the first to open a plasma bank in the country and had said that the therapy was one of the five “weapons” it had against the viral infection.

Talking about the increasing number of cases in the city, Jain said, “From what the experts say, this time around the infection is spreading faster but there are fewer deaths. To control the spread, we have ramped up testing to between 80 and 90 thousand each day, we are tracing 20 to 30 contacts for each positive case and quarantining them. And, we are creating micro containment zones,” said Jain.

The fourth Covid-19 wave continued to expand its footprint in the Capital, with Delhi adding 4,033 new infections on Sunday, the largest one-day spike in 121 days, even as the disease claimed 21 more lives — the most since January 1 this year.