NEW DELHI: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday asserted that over 2,000 Covid-19 patients in the city have benefitted from plasma therapy which also saved his life, a day after a top ICMR official indicated that the Centre was considering removing it from the clinical management protocol.
At a press conference, Jain also said these patients received convalescent plasma through dedicated plasma banks of the city government, besides others getting it from donors.“We have been doing it (plasma therapy trials) after getting due permission. The ICMR-AIIMS study has not shown much breakthrough. But people are getting benefitted from it here, and over 2,000 have benefitted by receiving plasma from the dedicated bank only,” Jain said, when asked about Centre considering removing it from Covid-19 clinical management protocol.
The Health Minister, himself a survivor, asserted that “this has helped save my life too”. “Even America has acknowledged its benefit. And, the research is going on it world over. Delhi in a way is a pioneer and plasma therapy benefits have been seen. You should go and ask family members of those patients who were administered the plasma therapy,” he said.
Presently, the use of off-label convalescent plasma for treating Covid-19 patients in the moderate stage of the illness is allowed under “investigational therapies”. However, a randomised controlled trial, led by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on 464 patients in 39 hospitals in 25 districts spanning across 14 states and union territories in the country has shown that plasma therapy does not reduce mortality or prevent progression of the disease from moderate to severe.
Delhi leads the way with first plasma banks
The city and country’s first plasma bank was opened for public on July 2 by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at the state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Science (ILBS) in south Delhi. After that, another plasma bank was opened at the Lok Nayak (LNJP) Hospital, a dedicated coronavirus facility