E-Paper
KGMU gets nod for plasma therapy
Plasma therapy shall soon start for Covid-19 patients in Uttar Pradesh as the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) has given permission to King George’s Medical University in this connection.
Plasma therapy shall soon start for Covid-19 patients in Uttar Pradesh as the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) has given permission to King George’s Medical University in this connection.
Five coronavirus patients, who were treated successfully at the medical university, are ready to donate plasma. Under plasma therapy, plasma from cured patients is transfused to other patients who are under treatment for Covid-19.
KGMU has also sent a proposal to Indian Council of Medical Research, asking the apex research body to make the medical university a nodal centre for plasma therapy for Covid-19 patients.
“Covid patients, who complete treatment, develop antibodies and they can be used after 28 days of completing the treatment. We have our first lot of such patients ready,” said Prof Tulika Chandra, head of the department of transfusion medicine at KGMU. The work will be done in collaboration with Dr D Himanshu of KGMU’s medicine department, who is treating patients in the isolation ward.
Plasma will be obtained with apheresis, the process of separating the cellular and soluble components of blood using a machine. Apheresis is often done on donors where whole blood is centrifuged to obtain individual components (eg, RBCs, platelets, plasma based on specific gravity) to use for transfusion in different patients.
The plasma obtained will be transfused to patients. “We are already following the highest protocols of transfusion,” said Prof Chandra.
She said plasma donation will be completed first and then a plan will be made for transfusion.
The plasma donors have been treated at KGMU and are residents of Lucknow.
About the proposal to make KGMU a nodal centre for plasma therapy in the state, Prof Chandra said once the ICMR gives the nod, work can start to make a pool of plasma from treated patients in the state and then transfusion can be done.
A team of doctors will closely monitor the transfusion, its impact and change in the health condition of the admitted patients at KGMU. The medical university has treated 16 Covid-19 patients till now and discharged 11 of them after they recovered.
