State to set up plasma bank

NT NETWORK

Panaji

Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Saturday announced that a plasma bank will be set up at the in-house blood bank of the Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim, for the treatment of critical COVID-19 patients.

He said that convalescent plasma therapy  will soon be included in the treatment protocol for critical COVID patients after receiving approval from the central  authorities.

CPT is a procedure wherein plasma from the blood of a recovered COVID patient is transfused into a critical COVID patient. The blood of the recovered COVID patient develops antibodies. When injected into the blood of the severely ill patient, these antibodies help that person fight the dreaded infection.

Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Rane informed that GMC’s department of transfusion medicine and the microbiology department will be roped in to set up the plasma bank.

“We will write to the ICMR with our proposal for setting up  the plasma bank and introducing  the plasma therapy. We will also  hire an MD and trained technicians on a contractual basis to run the plasma transfusion medicine department,” he elaborated.

Plasma will be taken from voluntary donors – recovered patients who are above 18 years and below 60 years of age – only after 28 days of their recovery from the disease, the minister explained, adding that recovered patients will be motivated to donate plasma.

Rane said that subsequently an institutional expert committee will be formed to look into technicalities of the procedure and keep a track of records from the Margao-based COVID Hospital.

“Initially our aim is to store 1000 packets of

plasma, for which we will  procure  two blood plasma freezers,” he said later in a social media post.

The Health Minister earlier at  the press conference claimed that the in-house blood bank of the GMC will have two freezers reserved that can store over 2,000 packets of plasma.

“We will store the plasma… the ‘validity’ is for one year.  Whenever it is required we can use it by following the protocols,” he said, adding that there is no need to have additional infrastructure other than a few machines to start the plasma bank. 

The state government will explore to adopt the standard operating procedures followed by Kerala’s health department in treating COVID-19 patients using CPT.