India Cares: Bridge between plasma donors & patients

BHUBANESWAR: Amid rise in Covid-19 cases, India Cares, a social organisation, has launched an online system to connect plasma donors with infected people across the country. The organisation has uploaded a link on Twitter where donors can click and fill the required details in a Google form.

For donating plasma, a donor must have recovered from Covid-19 around 21 to 28 days back. The donor must also have adequate antibodies which would be tested before he/she is allowed to donate. “India Cares volunteers would contact the donors and advice them to visit a blood bank or hospital where a Covid-19 patient is undergoing treatment,” said Sabita Chanda, one of the volunteers who is overseeing the activity. Chanda said India Cares has been connecting plasma donors with Covid patients for the last year. 

However, the demand for plasma therapy went up considerably in December, 2020 and January this year after several blood banks and hospitals ran out of plasma. Apart from Odisha, the organisation is also receiving requests for plasma from states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi. The online process for plasma donation was started on April 9 this year. Till now, 816 registrations have been done for both blood and plasma donation. “We are receiving 20 registrations from across the country every week,” said Chanda.