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State’s first plasma bank inaugurated at Noida
Noida: Uttar Pradesh on Saturday got its first plasma bank at the Rotary Noida Blood Bank in Sector 31 for treatment of Covid-19 patients in the city.
Noida: Uttar Pradesh on Saturday got its first plasma bank at the Rotary Noida Blood Bank in Sector 31 for treatment of Covid-19 patients in the city.
The plasma bank that has a storage capacity of 10,000 units of 200 ml each also received its first three units of plasma donated by the Rotary club members who had successfully recovered from Covid-19 and qualified to donate the convalescent plasma.
“The bank will be a part of Rotary Noida Blood Bank. We will now start reaching out to the recovered patients and will motivate them to donate the plasma. The contacts of such patients will be procured from the different hospitals of Noida. Once we have a proper stock of convalescent plasma, this bank will cater to demands of the city and neighbouring areas. In Gautam Budh Nagar, four private and two government hospitals have the infrastructure to treat Covid-19 patients through plasma therapy,” said Trilok Sharma, founder trustee, Rotary Noida Blood Bank.
The bank was inaugurated by UP’s minister of state (health) Atul Garg, along with GB Nagar district magistrate Suhas LY. Other senior officials were also present on the occasion.
One of the most affected districts of the state, GB Nagar had 897 active Covid-19 cases as of Saturday, while 3,700 had been discharged post-treatment and 40 patients succumbed to the infection.
Appreciating the initiative, officials said that experts from government hospitals or institutes with good experience of plasma therapy will also be sent to extend their expertise and supervise the new plasma bank.
“It is the first dedicated bank in the entire state. The plasma therapy is already going on at GIMS Greater Noida and Child PGI. At GIMS, doctors have done many procedures successfully, but it doesn’t have a plasma bank. We will also be sending GIMS officials to supervise the plasma bank and extend their expertise,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate, GB Nagar.
Suhas further said that this is the first plasma bank in a non-Covid hospital, where a person can walk in with a proper prescription by a Covid-19 hospital and acquire plasma for treatment of their family members.
Authorities at the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), which has already performed 78 plasma therapies, said that they are self-reliant.
“We are already maintaining our own stockpile of convalescent plasma and also helping other hospitals in Noida, Faridabad and Gurugram, among others. We are self-dependent and don’t think would require help from a plasma bank or any external source to obtain convalescent plasma,” said Dr Rakesh Gupta, director, GIMS.
Plasma is a major component of a person’s blood, making up almost 55% of it. In convalescent plasma therapy, antibody-rich plasma from recovered patients is injected into recovering individuals to help them stave off infection. Although promising, the effectiveness of the treatment is still in the experimental stage and is allowed to be administered only in severely ill patients.
Notably, the plasma therapy has been previously used during the Sars and Mers outbreaks (which were also caused by viruses in the same family as the Sars-CoV-2 that causes Covid-19).
