Plasma therapy of cured patients' blood can be used in fighting COVID-19: AIIMS Director

The blood of cured coronavirus patients can be used to treat COVID-19 patients, says Delhi AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria.

"Conversion plasma is a therapy that is being looked at as an option to treat the patients of COVID-19. If a coronavirus positive patient recovers, then he recovers by his body fighting the infection. To fight the infection, the body produces antibodies that stay in the blood," Dr Guleria told ANI on Sunday.

He said this is the reason the doctors can ask the cured COVID-19 patients to donate their blood to another virus-infected patient to boost his immune system.

"If these antibodies are found to be in high amount in a person who has recovered from the coronavirus, we can ask him to donate his blood. From that blood, we take plasma which has a high concentration of anti-bodies. These antibodies can be transfused to another COVID-19 person, which boost the immune system of sick persons and fight the virus in a better manner," added Dr Guleria.

The plasma therapy was used to deal with viruses like Ebola. It is now being tried in various institutes in India. "If data suggests it is useful, we will use it in the near future," said Dr Guleria.

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) on Saturday gave approval to Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) to treat COVID-19 patients with 'convalescent-plasma therapy,' which uses immune power gained by a recovered person to treat a sick person.SCTIMST comes under the Department of Science and Technology."Technically called convalescent-plasma therapy, the treatment aims at using immune power gained by a recovered person to treat a sick person. The Indian Council for Medical Research has given approval to SCTIMST for carrying out the novel treatment," said the Ministry of Science and Technology.