BENGALURU: With Karnataka grappling with a persistent surge in cases and fatalities amid the ongoing second wave, the demand for plasma has hit a new high.
However, there is an acute scarcity of donors, with Bengaluru’s plasma banks having run out of them as well.
“Calls have started pouring in at our plasma bank and even at other voluntary organisations, but we are running out of stocks,” said Dr Vishal Rao U S, who heads the state-supported HCG plasma bank, adding that the demand has gone up almost five times.
The HCG plasma bank is administering plasma to about five patients every day, when the need is above 25 per day.
According to Dr Rao, with Remdesivir seeing a shortage and many times not as effective, many international bodies are relying on plasma to save lives.
He said, “you can see there is a great increase in the number of people getting admitted to ICUs at designated hospitals. As on Friday, we have seen 577 patients in ICUs across the state. There will be many critical patients who can be saved with plasma therapy”.
Ameen E Mudassar, founder of Covid Helpline Bangalore -- a website offering firsthand assistance to pandemic-related issues, said they are getting at least 11-15 requests for plasma daily.
According to experts, last year, the Karnataka Government even announced a cash prize of Rs 5,000 for those who came forward to donate plasma.
However, they stopped coming from October, as many had not been paid the money.
This caused a huge gap in the plasma stock. “In many cases, patients’ relatives only call us when they are asked to arrange for plasma donors directly by the hospitals, due to shortage of the same,” Mudassar said, explaining that the number of cases also dropped in between, and hence, the donations might have reduced too.
Interestingly, during the first wave, many donors at the blood banks and HCG were healthcare and frontline workers, but their numbers have also dwindled after the vaccination process started.
Experts feel a lack of guidelines on plasma donation from the authorities could also be a reason for the crisis.
“A person who got infected in the past six months can donate plasma 28 days after the second dose of vaccination,” a doctor said.
“We need to have fresh donors who have passed a month since they got infected, but not beyond three months. Many of the old donors do not have strong antibodies required for the therapy,” mentioned Dr Rao.
He hopes that the government will extend support on spreading awareness. Being a member of the Covid Task Force, he has alerted the CM too.