The Telangana Plasma Donors’ Association, an NGO to create awareness among people who recovered from COVID to donate their plasma to save other coronavirus patients, was launched on Thursday, with Congress leader Gudur Narayan Reddy as the president.
After launching the association, Mr. Narayan Reddy and office-bearers P. Rathore (vice-president), Satyanarayana Reddy (secretary) and A. Narender (treasurer) met Health Minister Eatala Rajender to request him to frame guidelines for plasma donations in Telangana.
Responding to his request, Mr. Rajender called the Director of Medical Education, Director of Public Health and other senior officials asking them to gather information from the governments of Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha and other states on steps taken by them to boost plasma therapy.
He asked them to frame the guidelines or Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) to encourage plasma therapy in the State.
During the meeting, Mr. Narayan Reddy assured the Health Minister that he would rope in nearly 100 Telugu doctors settled in UK, Spain, Italy and USA, to coordinate in tele-medicine for COVID patients in Telangana. He said that those doctors have experience in handling thousands of coronavirus cases in those countries.
Mr. Rajender appreciated the offer and asked DME Dr. Ramesh Reddy, DoH Dr. Srinivasulu and OSD Dr. Gangadhar to improve upon the proposal by meeting Narayan Reddy.
Speaking to the media earlier, Mr. Narayana Reddy demanded the government to act fast on plasma therapy as it was giving better results in treatment of critically-ill COVID patients. Two persons, who have recovered from COVID, could donate their plasma to save one serious patient suffering from coronavirus, Mr. Narayan Reddy, who himself recovered from COVID, said.
He added that many states have done commendable jobs in implementing plasma therapy. While the Delhi government is establishing a Plasma Bank, Maharashtra government has launched the biggest plasma trial titled ‘Project Platina’. Some other states including Karnataka, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have been using plasma therapy in an effective manner to treat patients.