Blood samples of 4 Covid survivors test positive for antibodies; BMC announces donation

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday announced that plasma therapy will be started in Mumbai to treat COVID-19 patients after blood samples of four recovered patients have tested positive for antibodies.

BMC has also appealed to people who have recovered from COVID-19 to come forward and donate their plasma in order to help save other patients' recovery. 

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Earlier, Mumbai had received the go-ahead from the Indian Council of Medical Research to start a trial on convalescent plasma therapy. Infectious disease expert Dr. Om Shrivastava is the principal investigator of the trial. According to reports, a 50-year-old patient at Lilavati Hospital has been identified for the first plasma transfusion in Maharashtra.

Last week, the state had sought permission from the Centre to start clinical trials of plasma therapy and Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine for treatment of Covid-19 patients. Kerala and Delhi have already got permission to conduct the trials.

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What is plasma therapy?

Convalescent Plasma Therapy is an experimental procedure to treat COVID-19 infection. In this treatment method, plasma from a COVID patient who has fully recovered is transfused into a coronavirus patient with critical condition. It is aimed at assessing the efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit complications in COVID-19 patients.

Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally increased to 8068 after 440 fresh novel coronavirus cases were detected on Sunday, April 26. With 358 new patients, Mumbai constitutes a large chunk of the surge in the state's COVID-19 cases. 112 persons were discharged in the day, taking the total number of recovered individuals to 1076. Presently, Maharashtra's death toll stands at 342. 

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