Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a video conference on Friday said that in the last few days, they have tried plasma therapy on 4 COVID-19 patients at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and till now the results are encouraging.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday addressed a press briefing on the initial positive results of the use of plasma treatment to COVID-19 patients. Speaking in the presser, Kejriwal said that in the last few days, they have tried plasma therapy on 4 patients at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and till now the results are encouraging.
"We are happy with the positive results in the 4 patients. Blood and plasma is ready for 2-3 other patients that we have at LNJP hospital, we may give them the plasma therapy today," said Dr. SK Sarin, Director, Institute of Liver & Biliary Science, who joined Kejriwal in the video conference.
"At this time, we need those people who have recovered from COVID-19 and are at their homes. We need them to show their patriotism and donate blood plasma," Dr. SK Sarin added.
Earlier, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said, "Doctors will conduct the clinical trial of plasma enrichment technique to treat severely-ill coronavirus patients in the next three to four days. If the trial is successful, we will be able to save the lives of serious COVID-19 patients."
Several states, including Kerala, Gujarat and Punjab have already begun using plasma therapy for patients suffering from COVID-19. This comes after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) allowed the clinical trials of plasma therapy.
With this, hundreds of other institutes have also shown interest to study how safe and efficient is plasma therapy in treating the novel coronavirus.
What is plasma therapy?
Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an experimental procedure to treat COVID-19 infection. In this treatment method, plasma from a COVID patient who has fully recovered is transfused into a coronavirus patient with critical condition. It is aimed at assessing the efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit complications in COVID-19 patients.
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