Curbing the crisis: Bengaluru NGO's campaign to provide plasma for COVID patients

BENGALURU: During a pandemic of the scale we are currently seeing, everyone is doing whatever they can to help. Bengaluru, which is one of the worst-affected cities in the country, has a high number of recovered COVID-19 patients but not enough plasma donors.

Ekal Yuva Bengaluru, the youth wing of the NGO Ekal Abhiyan Bengaluru chapter, is currently running a campaign around plasma donation to bridge that gap. The idea came to Vikram Agarwal, chairperson of Ekal Yuva Bengaluru, a little over a week ago when he learned of a request for O +ve plasma.

He went ahead and donated plasma, and posted a picture of it on social media to encourage other people to do the same. Seeing his post, three of his friends got in touch with him to find out how they could go about it. Agarwal took it further and proposed a campaign on Ekal Yuva's Bengaluru group.

"In the last 10 days we got 125 people to donate plasma and we were able to provide 49 patients with plasma," says Agarwal, adding that approximately they had collected 93 units.  Apart from Agarwal, the team comprises 21 people including Anil Sarda, Saket Garg, Dr Abhishek Modi, Vikas Gupta, Mohan Agarwal, Sanjay Baid.

Considering the chaos people face when they struggle to get immediate medical attention for loved ones, the organisation is working on a system that divides work among its volunteers. "Everyone has a specific role. Some of the responsibilities that people are assigned include calling plasma donors, checking their antibodies to assess eligibility for plasma donation, banking the plasma, checking requirements as per verified leads and then calling the beneficiary and donating the plasma," the 40-year-old businessman says.

Agarwal is working along with his team and urges more people to come forward to donate. "The problem is that there are a huge number of patients but hardly any plasma donors. So more people need to come forward to donate, especially celebrities who could post their pictures on their social media pages to inspire others," he says.