Rims to commence plasma therapy from July 28

Ranchi: Jharkhand is all set to commence the clinical trial of plasma therapy in the state’s only tertiary care centre for Covid-19 patients, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims), from July 28. The state health department has asked the hospital management to make all the necessary arrangements for setting up the plasma bank, the inauguration of which will be done by chief minister Hemant Soren.
On Friday, health minister Banna Gupta said, “Going by the reports from several states where plasma therapy helped in the treatment of Covid-19 patients, we decided to start plasma collection in Ranchi after ICMR gave its approval.”
Even though ICMR had given its approval for starting plasma therapy in Jharkhand months ago, the state failed to implement it all this while. Earlier this month, state health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni had written to Rims’s acting director, Dr Manju Gari, instructing her to start plasma therapy at the state-run hospital.
As part of the therapy, the plasma of a recovered person is extracted and administered to a virus patient. Currently, clinical trials of plasma therapy are being conducted across the country to find out if the antibodies found in a recovered person’s plasma can help in the recovery of Covid-19 patients.
Dr Sushma, the associate professor of blood bank and transfusion medicine at Rims, said, “We have prepared the standard operating procedure for starting plasma collection. We have taken permission from five donors, who have recovered from the infection, for extracting their plasma.”
She added that as per the ICMR guidelines, a person is eligible for plasma donation only after 14 days of his/her recovery and if he/she tests negative for Covid-19 on RT-PCR.
Asked about their preparation for starting plasma therapy, Dr Sushma said, “We have installed a machine for collecting the plasma and we are waiting for the IG kits to arrive. Once we are done with conducting the pre-donation tests on the donors, we will start plasma therapy from July 28.”
“There will be a stringent screening of donors before their plasma is extracted. We will check their platelet counts, haemoglobin, protein levels and an antibody test will be conducted to check the presence of unusual antibodies in the donor,” she said.