Ranchi: Tepid response makes plasma donation at Rims slow starter

RANCHI: Despite a grand launch at the hands of chief minister Hemant Soren on July 28, initial trends show plasma donation has not been able to gather pace at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims) with just three donors in the first week.
While a recovered patient from Kokar became the first donor on July 28, three others who had volunteered were rejected after mandatory health check-ups before they could get on the donor’s chair. After July 28, two more recovered patients donated their plasma on July 31. Since then, no donor has stepped forward.
According to hospital sources, plasma collected from the first three donors were administered to three patients at Ranchi’s Medica Hospital, Raj Hospital and Orchid Hospital. One of the patients died last week. There has been no requirement of plasma from Rims so far.
Plasma therapy is aimed at quicker recovery of critically-ill Covid-19 patients by transfusing antibodies from patients who recovered between 28 days and 90 days.
“As per protocols, recovered patients between 18-60 years of age, who do not have underlying health problems and are symptomatic (excluding pregnant women and women who have children), are eligible as donors. However, majority of the patients who recovered from Rims are asymptomatic, which has led to a problem in getting donors,” Dr Mithilesh Kumar of the department of preventive and social medicine at Rims said. Kumar has been made the nodal officer for plasma donations.
“While the eligibility parameters have reduced the pool of prospective donors, social stigma has added to the woes with patients being approached for donation turning down the proposal citing some or the other reason,” Kumar added.
Late last week, the state government had floated an advertisement making a public appeal to recovered patients to step forward and donate, but that too could not yield results. As on Tuesday evening, 4,716 patients have recovered across Jharkhand.
When asked, Rims acting director Dr Manju Gari said, “Today (Tuesday) nine recovered patients approached me expressing their desire to volunteer. As far as low footfall is concerned, we will take up the matter with state health department on Wednesday.”
Ravi Shankar Shukla, the managing director of the state national health mission (NHM), said, “Apart from Rims, plasma therapy has begun at Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur. All the districts have been asked to make concerted efforts to convince recovered patients and get plasma donations done. We hope plasma donation will gain pace in Jharkhand gradually.”