ILBS joins hand with MAMC to do plasma therapy on COVID-19 patients

The Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) has set up a special clinic to conduct the plasma therapy trials to detect its efficacy on coronavirus (COVID19) patients; it is being done in collaboration with Maulana Azad Medical College.

In plasma therapy, medical experts extract plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient who has developed protective antibody-protein after clearance of the virus. Then, this antibody protein is given to a critically ill COVID-19 patient to fight the virus.

Dr Shiv Sarin, Director, ILBS told : "We have received our ethics committee approval for it. Also, the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) has given its green signal to us to conduct a plasma therapy trial on seriously ill COVID-19 patients."

For this, Dr Suresh Kumar from Lok Nayak Hospital under the umbrella of Maulana Azad Medical College is identifying patients for this trial.

All donors and recipients would be screened to investigate for other co-morbid conditions and diseases like Hepatitis B or C. Thereafter, the plasma will be administered to the critically sick COVID-19 patients who will meet the set parameters for the therapy. These patients are admitted to Lok Nayak Hospital.

Recently, the Delhi government has declared Lok Nayak Hospital as a dedicated centre for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Dr Suresh Kumar said: "We will create two groups of 10 COVID-19 patients each. One set of the group will receive convalescent plasma while another group of patients will get placebo plasma. Then, we will see the outcomes that how both the group of patients are responding to the therapy. We are very positive that this method will be very effective for our patients."

( With inputs from ANI )