Could Plasma Therapy cure the effect of COVID-19?

The continuous spread of coronavirus disease has delivered our scientists and researchers extreme struggle every single day. They are non-stop working on several clinical studies and medical treatments to cure COVID-19. According to a study, the clinical supervision of the blood component called plasma from a recovered coronavirus patient to an affected person could be a safe substitute without any adverse side effects.

In the month of March 2020, several researchers working in the Houston Methodist Hospital in the United States came up with clinical trials to instil plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient to a severely affected person.

According to an article published in The American Journal of Pathology, the scientists explained the medical output of the discharged plasma installation trial. They stated that 19 out of 25 COVID-19 patients showed excellent results and 11 patients also got discharged from the hospital.

They further added that these medical trials need some of the validation of its verdicts. This group of researchers’ evaluation of the plasma transfusion for coronavirus disease is the first-ever field professionally reviewed plasma use in the United States.

As we all already know that there is currently no cure created for COVID-19 and we need some sort of approach by our field experts to help us fight this coronavirus disease. In fact, the US researchers said that this kind of therapeutic treatment was used back at the time of Spanish flu.

Later on, they also told that this plasma therapy was also moderately used as a success back in the time of 2003 SARS pandemic, the influenza H1N1 in 2009 and also in the Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2015.

Recently, on April 4, a 49-year old coronavirus patient was admitted to the Max Hospital in Saket, New Delhi. He was administered with fresh plasma treatment on the night of April 14.

According to the doctors, he came to the hospital with moderate symptoms and had a past of fever and respiratory problems. The patient’s health started deteriorating and soon he required external oxygen supply to maintain his health and well-being. The doctors also found pneumonia of Type 1 and immediately transferred him on a ventilator on April 8, 2020.

After seeing his worsening condition, his family asked the hospital for plasma therapy and found a donor who had just recovered from COVID-19. This donor had two consecutive negative reports over a span of three weeks.

After receiving the plasma therapy, the patient began to show vast improvements and went off the ventilator on April 18 but required external oxygen. After 24-hours he got shifted to a room and tested negative for coronavirus disease twice within 24 hours.

At the end of the day, if people in our country or anywhere in the world are showing great results with plasma therapy and that too with no side effects, then our medical experts of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) should take immediate measures to examine and regulate the severe COVID-19 cases with this plasma therapy treatment as required.