Plasma therapy for 18 hospitals mooted

Nod from ICMR, state FDA expected soon

The Maharashtra government has written to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), seeking approval for the application of plasma therapy for Covid19 patients in 18 government medical colleges and hospitals across the state. Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the ICMR nod is shortly expected.

Tope told The Free Press Journal, "Plasma therapy application in the state has shown encouraging results. The process involves taking antibodies from cured Covid-19 patients and injecting them into the blood of sick patients suffering from coronavirus. This provides an immediate boost to immunity.'' He informed that the medical colleges and hospitals will strictly follow protocol between the donor and the recipient in the application of plasma therapy.

Tope said the state government would also seek a nod from its own department of Food and Drug Administration, which is necessary. ''Approvals from the ICMR and FDA are expected within a week, so that the therapy can be tried on

Covid-19 patients in some of these 18 hospitals,'' he noted.

Endocrinologist and Diabetologist Dr Shashank Joshi said the convalescent plasma therapy is now approved by the Government of India and the ICMR as an off-label therapy and has been used extensively, according to a recently published trial from Mayo Clinic in USA. ''Convalescent plasma therapy is an experimental therapy for severely ill Covid-19 patients, currently in research mode, to save lives. Most medical colleges in research mode can conduct an ICMR-based study to look at this. The plasma from recovered patients needs to have the right titre of the neutralising antibodies, which could prove helpful to Covid-19 patients,'' he noted.

Call to tighten lockdown in N. Mumbai

Meanwhile, to get a grip on the rising number of corona cases in North Mumbai and other parts of the city, Tope said the BMC would have to step up surveillance and further tighten the Standard Operating Procedure with regard to tracing, tracking, testing, quarantine and isolation. ''In such areas, the lockdown needs to be further made stringent to curb spurt in cases,'' he noted.

Tope's view is important as the police in North Mumbai have made a strong case for a strict lockdown in this area, in the wake of rising cases. At a meeting with the BMC held last Friday, the police proposed a more stringent implementation of the lockdown between Goregaon and Dahisar, where 1,318 cases were detected. The case doubling rate there is 16 days, almost half the city's average 29 days.

The police have registered 431 offences between June 13 and 18 for the violation of lockdown norms in this area, especially relating to the non-wearing of masks, shops remaining open beyond the allotted time and pillion-riding. In Borivli west, there are 1,882 patients and the case doubling rate is 18 days.