COVID-19 cases in India are skyrocketing. Today, India has over 18,601 people who are infected with the novel coronavirus, while 590 people have died as of now due to COVID-19.
Medical authorities have been working tirelessly to find a viable treatment method that can effectively cure COVID-19, eliminating its existence from our nation.
Last week, ICMR authorised the conduction of a clinical trial for plasma therapy against COVID-19 and since then, several medical institutions across the nation have started to implement it for their patients and most of the results have been promising.?
Plasma Therapy or convalescent plasma is essentially a procedure where the immunity power gained by a patient after recovering from COVID-19 is harnessed and applied to other infected patients, offering them the immunity to ward off the coronavirus.
Dr Asha Kishore, Director, SCTIMST, (in a conversation with India Science Wire) explains, ¡°When a pathogen like novel coronavirus infect, our immune systems produce antibodies. Like the police dogs, the antibodies span out to identify and mark the invading virus.¡±
She added, ¡°White blood cells attach the identified intruders, and the body gets rid of the infection. The therapy, like blood transfusion, harvests the antibody from a recovered patient and ingest into a sick person. Helped by the antibody, the immune system mounts robust combat on the virus.¡±
Basically, blood plasma from recovered patients has the immunity to fight against COVID-19. This immunity when transferred in infected patients, gives them a stronger weapon to fight against the novel coronavirus.?
Within a week from the treatment going active, it has shown promising results in the patients. According to a recent TOI report, one of the first COVID-19 patient to receive plasma therapy in a Delhi hospital Max Healthcare has already recovered and off from the ventilator.
A patient in Central Florida by the name of Kevin Rathel was put on plasma therapy after his condition deteriorated due to COVID-19, with him being on life support. However, after 18 days of fighting battle with COVID-19, plasma therapy worked and now he¡¯s fully recovered and with his family at home.?
Surely, looking at the success stories, one might surely wonder if this is finally the silver bullet, the cure to taking down COVID-19 and bringing things back to normal.?
Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director at Max Healthcare and Senior Director at the Institute of Internal medicine states, ¡°We are delighted that the therapy worked well in his case, opening a new treatment opportunity during these challenging times. But it is important that we also understand that Plasma Therapy is no magic bullet.¡±
He further added, ¡°During the patient¡¯s treatment at Max Hospital, Saket, other standard treatment protocols were followed and we can say that Plasma Therapy could have worked as a Catalyst in speeding up his recovery. We cannot attribute 100 percent recovery to Plasma Therapy only, as there are multiple factors which carved his path to recovery."