Bhubaneswar: Plasma therapy on critical COVID-19 patients has shown encouraging results as the health condition of four critical patients out of the six who received the therapy reportedly have improved to a great extent.
Three of the four patients, who were earlier on oxygen support, are likely to be discharged from COVID hospital soon. The condition of the other two patients is also stable.
"Six patients were given Convalescent Plasma treatment and condition of four of them has improved. They are no longer on ventilators and will be discharged soon. We are confident that the two other patients will also be out of danger quickly," said Jayant Panda, Odisha government’s technical adviser on COVID-19.
The State's blood plasma capacity will increase soon as more than 100 persons who recovered from Covid have come forward to donate their plasma, he said.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had earlier inaugurated the plasma bank at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack through video conferencing. The therapy is currently available free of cost at three hospitals in Odisha.
While SCB Medical College is acting as the nodal agency for the Plasma Therapy, SUM Hospital, KIMS Hospital in Bhubaneswar and Ashwini Hospital in Cuttack are providing the facility.
Odisha is the third state after Delhi and Maharashtra to have Plasma Bank to treat critical COVID-19 patients. As per reports, eight units of plasma have been collected so far.
Samples from over 900 randomly selected households were taken during the first-round sample collection in Bhubaneswar, she said.
Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an experimental procedure where plasma from the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient is transfused to a critically ill Coronavirus patient. The blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 develops antibodies. When injected into the blood of another patient, these antibodies are supposed to help that person fight the infection.
(Edited By Suryakant Jena)
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