3 serious patients recover after 7-day plasma therapy

Noida: Another round of plasma therapy for Covid-19 has been successful in Noida, with all three patients discharged on Friday — a week after the therapy began. Seven patients so far have been administered convalescent plasma therapy successfully.
The three men — 23, 42 and 43 — had been admitted in serious condition three weeks ago. “All three patients came to us in serious condition, with pneumonia and respiratory problems.One needed NIV (non-invasive ventilator) support. We began plasma therapy after seeking their consent, a little over a week ago. Their condition improved gradually. Their second tests came back negative and we discharged them today (Friday),” said Dr RK Gupta, director of GIMS.
In plasma therapy, blood from a person who has recovered from Covid-19 is drawn. It’s rich in antibodies that can fight the virus. When a patient who has the infection gets a transfusion of the antibody-rich blood, it is believed to help recover from the infection because of the passive immunity the patient develops. On May 25, in the first such treatment here, GIMS had discharged a 65-year-old after successful convalescent plasma therapy. This was followed by three more patients.
Friday’s recoveries include Rahul Sharma (23), a resident of Rampur village, Bhopal Singh, a 43-year-old resident of Sorkha village and Bablu Chaudhary, a 42-year-old resident of Sahapur village. Two units of convalescent plasma were used for each. “I got a fever and a cough. So I got myself tested, it came back positive and I was admitted to GIMS. I was under treatment for 13 days. The doctors then gave me plasma therapy treatment. Now I am back home with my wife and two children,” Chaudhary, who runs a utensils shop, said.
GIMS has sent convalescent plasma units to two hospitals in Delhi so far. GIMS got seven convalescent plasma donors earlier last month. “The hospitals needed the plasma units and we sent our units in keeping with what they needed,” Dr Gupta said. US FDA rules say suitable donors are those whose infection began 28 days prior.
It has been working well so far. “We have treated seven patients with this so far. It is undertaken only with moderately serious or critical patients … Covid-19 is an evolving disease. Various treatment modalities are being used and convalescent plasma is one of them, undertaken only by accredited Covid hospitals and centres under ICMR guidelines,” Dr Gupta said.
Convalescent plasma therapy is known to improve the survival rate of patients with SARS, Ebola and H1N1. But since there are no definitive studies about its effects on SARS-CoV2, it has been used in trials across the country since last month. But only institutes that get approval from ICMR can undertake plasma therapy treatment.