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Pune’s Sassoon hospital gets ICMR nod for blood plasma therapy
The administration has prepared a list of 35 probable donors who were cured, have recovered and been discharged from the Naidu Hospital earlier in March. Further steps regarding the therapy will be taken in two-three days
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has given permission to Pune-based Sassoon General Hospital to carry out plasma therapy, offering hopes to those Covid-19 patients who are critical, according to a senior health official.
The ICMR nod to government-run Sassoon hospital came on Saturday, when city’s death count of Covid-19 positive patients crossed 100 with 68 of them at Sassoon hospital itself.
Sassoon hospital is now the second such facility in the state after Mumbai to explore the therapy on critically ill Covid-19 patients. In Mumbai, a patient died even after plasma therapy earlier last week.
“With the permission from ICMR granted, we will take further steps in terms of the therapy in the next two to three days,” said Dr Subhash Salunkhe, chairman, Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Technical Committee.
It was former Sassoon hospital dean Dr Ajay Chandanwale who had sent the proposal to ICMR requesting permission for plasma therapy, accordingly the required equipments were also brought to the hospital.
To give plasma therapy to a positive Covid-19 patient, coverage under insurance and also Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) permission is a must. After these clearances were obtained, the way to start the procedure has been cleared.
A city-based firm Avinash Bhosale infrastructure limited (ABIL ) group last week donated Rs 28 lakh to Sassoon hospital to buy equipments required to extract plasma from the blood of a recovered patient.
“We have received all the necessary approvals as per the protocol and soon the clinical trials for plasma therapy will start on Covid-19 positive patients. The process of making a list of donors who have recovered from the disease and are willing to donate plasma is being made. The samples will be sent for testing to National Institute of Virology (NIV) for antibodies against virus,” said Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram.
According to Salunkhe, the administration has prepared a list of donors and a message is being communicated to them.
“We have prepared a list of around 35 probable donors who were cured, recovered and discharged from the Naidu Hospital earlier in March. Our counsellors and social workers are in continuous touch with them, their entire screening and checkup will be done and then its process will start. The first transmission has not yet happened in Pune and only Sassoon hospital has got the approval from the ICMR. In the next couple of days the things will get clearer and the actual process of the plasma therapy will start in the city,” said Salunkhe
