A man admitted at Max Hospital in Delhi's Saket for COVID-19 has shown improvement after being treated with the convalescent plasma of a recovered coronavirus patient.
After a private hospital in Delhi successfully treated a COVID-19 infected person with the plasma of an already recovered patient, Rohtak PGI has said that it has the required facility to use therapy in the treatment of seriously-ill persons.
A man admitted at Max Hospital in Delhi's Saket for COVID-19 has shown improvement after being treated with the convalescent plasma of a recovered coronavirus patient. This is said to be the first clinical trial of plasma therapy and its result has encouraged doctors in the treatment of serious patients. Convalescent plasma as a viable treatment for COVID-19 patients is still at an experimental stage.
Speaking on plasma therapy, Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGI), Rohtak director Rohtas Yadav said the institute has the facility to use plasma therapy to treat patients. It has the required equipment, Doctor Yadav said. He, however, added that the hospital has nor felt the need to use the therapy so far.
In convalescent plasma therapy, antibodies from the blood of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 are used to treat severely infected patients.
Explaining, Yadav said that plasma is the solid part of the blood which works to create antibodies. Earlier, the therapy was used to treat H1N1 infected patients.
The PGI Director said that the institute has a high-tech blood bank, cell separator machines and the therapy will be used on serious patients who need ventilators.
As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, hospitals and institutions planning to provide this treatment should do so in a clinical trial with protocols which are cleared by the Institutional Ethics Committee.
At this moment, the ICMR does not recommend this as a treatment option outside of clinical trials.
The study is aimed at assessing the efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit complications in COVID-19 patients and to evaluate the safety of treatment with anti-SARS-CoV-2 plasma in coronavirus-infected patients.
The treatment of a 49-year-old patient at Max Hospital is said to be the first successful trial in India.
"After receiving the treatment, the patient showed progressive improvement and by the fourth day, was weaned off ventilator support on the morning of April 18th, Saturday and continued on supplementary oxygen, thereafter. He has been shifted to a room with round-the-clock monitoring at present. He has started taking oral feed since Sunday and is faring well," the hospital said.
This is said to be the first clinical trial of plasma therapy and its result has encouraged doctors in the treatment of serious patients. Convalescent plasma as a viable treatment for COVID-19 patients is still at an experimental stage.
The convalescent plasma of a person recovered from a disease contains antibody, a protective protein produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance such as a virus. The plasma of such a person contains a higher number of antibodies. The therapy involves using convalescent plasma of a person who has recovered to treat a patient.
The treatment is used only on serious patients.
Use of convalescent plasma has been studied in outbreaks of other respiratory infections, including the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak, the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza virus pandemic, and the 2012 MERS-CoV epidemic.
The trials for COVID-19 treatment using plasma therapy are being carried out by different countries and have shown promising results. Scientists are yet to deem it a safe and effective treatment for COVID19.
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