COVID-19: Planning to donate plasma to patients? Check out these dos and don'ts

Covid-19 infections are increasing at an alarming rate in the country amid an oxygen supply crisis and new variants surfacing. In view of this, the Centre has released guidelines for people who have recovered from COVID-19 and want to donate plasma to other infected patients.

But what is plasma therapy?

Plasma therapy, broadly known as 'convalescent plasma therapy', is a procedure to treat coronavirus infection. In this experimental treatment, plasma, which is the yellowish liquid part of the blood, is extracted from a person who has recovered from the infection and injected into a patient who is suffering from that disease.

The plasma contains that antibodies that can help a patient fight the pathogen and recover from the disease.

Dos and don't you should know about:

1. Always carry a hard copy of the COVID-19 negative report (RT-PCR or rapid antigen test) within 4 months of the day of donation and your Aadhar Card (front and back).

2. Donate only after 14 days of a COVID-19 positive report if the person is asymptomatic or after 14 days of symptoms if the person is symptomatic.

3. Women who have ever been pregnant cannot donate COVID-19 convalescent plasma.

If you are planning to donate plasma to a COVID positive patient in Delhi, here are the do's and don'ts you should know about! #IndiaFightsCorona #Unite2FightCorona pic.twitter.com/98mtaDmpZA

— MyGovIndia (@mygovindia) April 24, 2021

4. A person who has received COVID-19 vaccination will not be able to donate plasma for 28 days from the date of vaccination.

5. A person can not donate if he/she gets rejected for the lack of adequate antibodies in the blood. 

6. Please contact hospital authorities for any other information in advance, on phone.

List of websites for information on plasma donation:

• covidplasma.online/
• https://dhoondh.com
• http://needplasma.in/

Digital data bank of plasma donors

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police has set up a digital data bank of plasma donors to facilitate plasma therapy in an effort to connect donors and needy recipients, after due authentication.

Named 'Jeevan Rakshak', an online Google form has been devised for the purpose. The persons in need of plasma will register their requests for requisition, for which the link is available on the Delhi Police's official website.

As per a statement, the potential donor will be required to give details such as Name, Age, Gender, Marital Status, Co-morbidities, Contacts, Location, Blood Group, Date of recovering from COVID-19, Social Media handles along with their consent.

Those seeking plasma will be directed to a form containing the fields like Name of patient, Age, Gender, Mobile number of patient, Name of caretaker, Name of hospital, the Patient ID of Hospital, Location of Hospital, Blood Group and Doctor's prescription.

The data will be maintained centrally by the Delhi Police. A dedicated team will be deputed to check out the requests received for plasma recipients and on the availability of the suitable donor, the information about the recipient and donor will be shared among them.

This initiative will help in facilitating timely plasma therapy for the recipients, thus saving precious lives.