UP to accelerate research into plasma therapy to treat Covid-19 patients

Two medical facilities in UP are already working on plasma therapy

Encouraged by reports of using plasma therapy for treating Covid-19 patients, the Uttar Pradesh government has also decided to accelerate research into this therapy to contain the disease.

Chairing a review meeting in Lucknow on Tuesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked officials to speed up work for using plasma therapy on coronavirus patients.

Plasma therapy involves transfusing antibodies from the blood of such persons, who have recovered from the virus attack, into patients who are still infected with the virus. According to media reports, a Covid-19 patient in New Delhi has shown positive results with ‘marked’ improvement in his health condition. He was recently taken off the ventilator support as well.

Currently, two medical facilities, including King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, are already engaged in plasma therapy research, UP additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi said here this evening.

“The CM took note of the report suggesting encouraging results in treating Covid-19 patients with plasma therapy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 centric Arogya Setu app has been downloaded by more than 10 million mobile phone subscribers in UP and the government is targetting that all the estimated 60 million smartphone users in the state download the app to protect against the infection.

Yesterday, the CM had asked officials to provide primary medical care training to the public to protect against the disease. The state plans to deploy ‘master trainers’ to provide rudimentary medical care training to the people.

So far, UP has reported 1,294 coronavirus cases across 53 districts, of which 140 have been discharged. Twenty persons have succumbed to the disease, thereby leaving 1,134 active cases, said UP medical, health and family welfare principal secretary Amit Mohan Prasad.

However, 9 of these 53 districts currently have zero active patients, although the government has not lowered its guard with regards to continues screening, enforcing lockdown, sample testing, quarantining etc.

If no new cases are reported in 14 days, a corona red zone is declared as an orange zone. If no new cases emerge in total 28 days, the zone is declared a green zone. However, the area is subjected to unabated monitoring and sample testing to ensure there is no spread of the disease. Currently, there are 348 corona hotspots under total lockdown in UP.

The state has ramped up daily sample testing to more than 3,000 with the cumulative testing of over 35,000 samples in UP.

The instance of Covid-19 is the highest in the 21-40 year age category with more than 48 per cent of the total cases in UP, followed by 41-60 year, 0-20 year and 61+ year categories reporting about 24 per cent, 19 per cent and 9 per cent cases, respectively. The percentage of male patients in UP is 78 per cent compared to women at 22 per cent.