BENGALURU: Karnataka will soon get a blood bank, specifically for COVID-19 patients, which will collect antibody-rich plasma from patients who have recovered from the disease recently. The blood plasma infusion method, which is being adopted in some countries like South Korea, the US and China, has found tentative evidence that seriously ill COVID-19 patients can benefit from it.
While the State Government has already given approval for this line of treatment, the Union Health Ministry is yet to grant clearance. “We have got approval from the State Government, but we are waiting for the Centre to clear it. Once cleared, it will help many severely ill patients,” confirmed a senior doctor from the Department of Immunohaematology and Blood Transfusion at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI).
Confirming this, Dr Nagaraja C, Director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases, said, “We have even sought clearance from some of the recovered patients and many of them are willing to donate their plasma. This will be a very helpful method to treat severely ill patients. We are looking forward to clearance from the health department.”
Recently, Biocon Chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw had reportedly telephoned Telangana IT minister K T Rama Rao and requested him to set up one such blood bank. KTR had tweeted about it and had said that he had asked the health officials to look into the issue of establishing such a blood bank.
Pvt players ready for plasma therapy too
Interestingly, private players too have also not ruled out these options. Dr Shashikiran Umakanth, Professor and Head, Department of Medicine and Nodal Officer for COVID-19 Hospital, Dr T M A Pai Hospital in Manipal, said, “We have kept the option open and we have also made note of recovered patients. The plasma collected from the patient has a shelf life of about three weeks. As it is a new kind of virus, we don’t know how long can it be stored. But any hospital with a lab to separate the blood cells and plasma can adopt this method and it will prove beneficial.
We have kept the option open at Manipal,” he said. He explained that convalescent plasma therapy, which involves collecting antibodies from the blood of recovered patients, is nothing new. It was used to treat the 1918 and 1957 flu epidemics, as well as SARS, H1N1 and Ebola and, more recently some COVID-19 patients. According to Dr Nagaraja, it was also found that while other tests can only check for the presence of antibodies, the covalescent therapy can also measure how much antibody is present.
“We can identify donors with high amount of antibody who will most likely benefit patients receiving the plasma. The more antibodies the greater the treatment’s efficacy, it is thought.” However, the whole process needs approval from Union Ministry of Health and proper guidelines need to be issued in terms of seeking ethical clearance as well as collection and storage of plasma. This will be done soon, sources pointed out.