The Telangana Congress party on Thursday questioned the State and Central governments for not evincing much interest on conducting plasma therapy on Coronavirus patients.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy, who just recovered from Covid-19, said that the trials of plasma therapy conducted last month were reportedly successful with many critical patients getting recovered from Coronavirus.
He said that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved 38 institutions for participating in a randomised controlled study to assess the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit complications associated with COVID-19.
He said the ESIC and Gandhi Medical College were among the institutions which had ICMR approval to conduct plasma therapy trials.
The Congress leader said that in the absence of vaccine or medicine to treat Covid-19, the results of plasma therapy, so far, have been highly encouraging. Therefore, he said that the authorities should focus on increasing the scale of plasma therapy.
Narayana Reddy pointed out that a critically sill Covid-19 patient from Hyderabad has fully recovered after receiving the convalescent plasma therapy approved by the ICMR. Trails were started on May 11 and the patient recovered in 10 days. Two units of plasma is required for each patient and therefore, two donors are needed to treat one critically ill-patient.
Since he has just recovered from Covid-19, Narayana Reddy announced that he was ready to donate plasma if he fulfils the eligibility criteria set by the ICMR and other authorities.
“I’ve recovered from the Coronavirus and it will be an honour for me to save the life of someone who is suffering from the same infection,” he said.