Rims plans plasma therapy for critically ill Covid-19 patients

Jaideep Deogharia | Updated: Apr 27, 2020, 16:50 IST

Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims). (Photo credit: https://www.rimsranchi.org)

RANCHI: Doctors at the state-run Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims) plan to start plasma therapy for seriously ill Covid-19 patients on an experimental basis after the treatment showed promise in curing many patients across the globe and in the country. Currently, Jharkhand has no critically ill Covid-19 patient.
The doctors have now asked the Ranchi district administration to get in touch with the patients who have recovered and are willing to donate plasma to start the therapy in Jharkhand, whenever required. However, the recovered patients, a total of 13 so far in the state, will have to first cross the mandatory convalescent period of three weeks before plasma can be drawn from them.
Head of trauma, emergency and critical care unit at Rims, Dr Pradip Bhattacharya, who is closely monitoring the Covid 19 patients, said plasma therapy involves a slew of tests and consent of both the donor and the recipient.
“From one unit of blood, two bags of plasma can be separated. This plasma contains among various other things, the antibody produced by the patient’s body who contracted the novel coronavirus. We are trying to use the antibodies present in the recovered patient’s body to fight the virus in patients who are critically ill,” he said.
Bhattacharaya added that at present there is not a single patient in the Covid-19 unit who requires plasma therapy. “Most of them are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms that is expected to be cured without major intervention,” he said.
Another member of the newly formed committee for plasma therapy, Dr J K Mitra, who is also the head of the department of medicine at Rims, said instead of only transfusing plasma taken from a convalescent patient, they are also planing to go for whole blood transfusion. “For the whole blood transfusion process, we have to ensure the blood groups match besides testing the blood for other possible infections like HIV, Hepatitis B and C before giving it to any other patient. However, if we use whole blood instead of plasma, the process would be less cumbersome but it is something which has not been tried earlier to treat viral infections,” he said.
Asked if plasma therapy had been used earlier, Bhattacharya said some countries had also used it during the swine flu epidemic. “We have not worked on plasma therapy to control viral infection yet and not many literature is available on its success rate, but research on Covid-19 patients have shown some positive results in other countries and in India as well and there is no harm trying it out,” he said.
Associate professor in the department of preventive and social medicine (PSM), Dr Devesh Kumar, said the only patient who was in need of plasma therapy was the elderly man who was the first casualty of Covid-19 in Jharkhand. “Apart from that single case, no other patient has been so critical that requires plasma therapy. This therapy is used only as a life saving technique,” he said.
Convalscent plasma therapy has been tried in China and US before Indian Council of Medical Research gave a go ahead for the therapy in India. Different medical institutions have also decided to begin clinical trials and see if it reduces the fatality in case of critically ill patients.