As plasma bank runs dry, CM B S Yediyurappa urges BBMP to find donors

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa has asked the BBMP to collect plasma from those who have recovered from the Covid-19 infection.

In a letter to BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, the Chief Minister said: “It has become inevitable to identify those who have recovered from Covid and collect plasma from them to treat those who need it in light of the second wave.”

He also instructed the civic body to offer all help and support to establish a well-equipped plasma bank in consultation with Dr Vishal Rao. “This needs to be done on priority,” the Chief Minister insisted.

The plasma bank established with the state government’s assistance at HCG Cancer Hospital has run out of convalescent plasma, while it gets at least 50 queries from critically ill Covid-19 patients from across the state.

Gupta did not respond to calls and messages from DH for his comment on the issue.

Though the BBMP did not announce initiatives to collect plasma from those who recovered from Covid-19, Dr Vishal Rao urged the government to share details of those recovered in the last three months to make a request for plasma donation.

Three challenges

Efforts to find plasma donors face three challenges.

First, a study by ICMR last year concluded that plasma therapy does not help critically ill patients, leading to scepticism over the method.

“The American College of Haematology, US FDA, Mayo Clinic and the meta-analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine have all said plasma is effective if given early in the treatment cycle and the plasma transfused has high titres (levels) of antibodies. These are two things that the ICMR did not do in its India trial and botched the whole thing to show that there is no use. This misinformation led to a critical downfall,” Dr Rao said.

Second, since Covid-recovered patients have waning antibodies three months after the recovery, they should donate plasma within that period but only 28 days after the Covid symptom is resolved.

And third, vaccinated individuals must wait 28 days before donating blood. Therefore, donating a blood component like plasma also cannot be done 28 days after the first or second vaccine dose.

In urgent need

A family member of two Covid patients admitted at HCG on Saturday said: “I’m looking for O Positive and A Positive plasma for my 82-year-old mother-in-law and 50-year-old brother-in-law. After asking around blood banks across the city who said they were not getting plasma donors. I finally found just one unit in the TTK blood bank.”