India News | Plasma Therapy Begins in Odisha's Ganjam District
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. After encouraging results from plasma therapy in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, the Odisha government on Tuesday started administering it on critically ill COVID-19 patients in Ganjam district, which accounted for 57 per cent of the total fatalities in the state, an official said.
Berhampur, Jul 21 (PTI) After encouraging results from plasma therapy in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, the Odisha government on Tuesday started administering it on critically ill COVID-19 patients in Ganjam district, which accounted for 57 per cent of the total fatalities in the state, an official said.
Ganjam is the worst affected district in the state with 225 fresh novel coronavirus cases on Tuesday, pushing the tally to 5,991, the official said. Fifty-nine COVID-19 deaths have been recorded in the district so far, he said.
"Plasma therapy has produced good results in other places. We hope this treatment will bring much relief to the patients here also," Ganjam collector V A Kulange said.
Under the therapy, antibodies from the blood of a recovered patient are used for the treatment of those in a critical condition.
So far, Odisha has applied plasma therapy on six critical COVID-19 patients.
The condition of four patients has improved, a health department official said. "Condition of two other patients is stable," he said. The plasma units were collected at SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, which has been recognised as a nodal centre for a plasma bank.
"We have initially planned to treat at least four persons with plasma therapy," said a doctor attached to the Tata COVID-19 Hospital at Sitalapalli. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik last week had inaugurated the COVID plasma bank for treatment of serious patients at the SCB Medical College and Hospital.
"We think a plasma bank is likely to be set up here soon with the government giving stress on reducing COVID-19 cases in Ganjam district," the collector said.
Meanwhile, the district administration has started registration of persons who have recovered from the deadly infection and willing to donate plasma.
As many as 34 persons have come forward to donate plasma in the district so far, the collector said. All the 22 BDOs in the district have been asked to find out at least ten plasma donors in each block, he said.
Susmita Behera, assistant professor, department of transfusion medicine at MKCG Medical College and Hospital here said that any healthy person, above 18 years, can donate plasma. Cured COVID-19 patients can donate plasma at least 28 days after recovering from the disease, she said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)