After Kerala, now Gujarat seeks permission for plasma trials

"The BJ medical college team and a team in SVP hospital Ahmedabad have applied to the ICMR for starting the clinical trials to study the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma in Covid-19 patients. Right now Kerala has been given the nod for plasma trials and is using that treatment to cure the Covid patients," said Jayanti Ravi, the principal secretary, the Health and family welfare Department, Gujarat.

The Convalescent Plasma therapy involves transfusion of plasma taken from a positive Covid-19 patient who has recovered from the disease and which is transfused into another CCovid-19 patient who is critical or likely to get critical.

The plasma from recovered Covid-19 patient contains source of highly potent antibodies which can help the deteriorating patient to fight back against the dreaded virus. The treatment is showing significant results globally and right now is considered to be the most effective way of treatment against the the global threat.

For this therapy, the plasma is to be collected from the recovered and cured patients of covid-19. A donor has to be a patient who has fully recovered from the disease, have confirmed negative results and has no symptoms after 14 days of isolation after discharge.

"There are many such cured patients in Gujarat who after being discharged and undergoing isolation period, are ready to help the other patients in this way, if we get the permission," added Ravi.

"But for this therapy, the best person to decide about the donor will be the doctors who are treating the patients who are critical," added Ravi.

Apart from Gujarat, many other states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have also applied to the ICMR for starting the plasma therapy to treat critical virus patients in their states.

Apart from the PCR testing for covid-19 in the citizens, the Gujarat health authorities have also placed an order of 2 lakh Rapid Antibody Testing RAT to a kit manufacturer in Palghar, Mumbai.

"Today we will be receiving around 10,000 kits from Palghar, Mumbai through our health staff in South Gujarat and right from today we are planning to start using them to carry out testing in the state. We are planning to conduct 500 test in Ahmedabad through RAT kits," added Ravi.

"Today will also be receiving kids from the central government which will be arriving from Delhi," added Ravi.

On Friday, Covid-19 case count in Gujarat shot past 1,000-mark, whereas the number of fatalities due to the disease reached 38. Ahmedabad has the maximum number of positive cases 590, followed by Vadodara 137, Surat 102, Rajkot 28, Bhavnagar and Anand with 26 each.

The health authorities intensified the surveillance and testing in certain areas of the state where more and more Covid-19 positive cases started emerging from the hotspots or cluster areas, in the walled city area of Ahmedabad, five containment zones in Surat, Vadodara's Nagarwada areas . But the virus is showing its presence in the other areas also, with increasing number of positive cases in Anand, Bharuch, Narmada, Patan and other districts as well, for which the health authorities are worried about.