GUWAHATI: People donating plasma to Covid-19 patients in Assam may get preferential treatment in job interviews and government facilities in the future, state’s Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday.
Appealing to people, who recovered from Covid-19, to donate plasma, Sarma said the observations in the US and India were that plasma therapy has no negative impact and 90% of patients recover if plasma could be given in a moderate state of a patient’s illness.
“The plasma donors will get a certificate. We will consider giving preferences to them in interviews, government schemes, etc in the future. Supposing two persons got equal marks in an interview. If one is a plasma donor, two extra marks will, probably, be added to his tally. Similarly, a plasma donor, who is a beneficiary of PMAY but his name is down there on the list, we will take his name upward,” Sarma told journalists.
Stating that the government will issue a notification towards this effect, he said the society would acknowledge the contributions of such people considering that one plasma could save two lives. He said only those people, who had Covid-19 symptoms and were in intensive treatment, could donate plasma.
“We have taken a massive initiative for plasma. The Covid-19 recovered people can contact us and save humanity. Hospitals in several states are yet to have a plasma bank. The plasma of the Covid-19 recovered people there will go in waste. So, we will campaign beyond Assam and appeal to people to donate their plasma,” the Minister said.
He said people from outside Assam willing to donate plasma would be provided with “state guest facilities”. The Assam government will bear the costs of their air travel, both ways. The government believes people would come forward, Sarma said.
So far, a few people, including a doctor from Karnataka who is a post-graduate student at the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, donated their plasma.
Assam has 19,754 Covid-19 positive cases including 48 deaths. The death rate is .24 which is the lowest in the country. Altogether 12,888 people have recovered. The recovery rate is 65.24% which is the fourth highest after Delhi, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. On both these counts, the figures of the other states in the Northeast were not calculated.