India / I urge people to come forward and donate plasma: Delhi CM

NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday urged more recovered covid-19 patients to come out and donate plasma. He said that currently the demand for plasma is higher than the supply. India’s first plasma bank recently started operations at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in the national capital.

“There was a lot of confusion among people on where they should go for plasma. Now they know they can go to the plasma bank. Since the bank has started, the demand for plasma is higher than the people coming forward to donate it. If we don’t increase the number of people coming out to donate, we will run out of stock of plasma," Kejriwal said while addressing a digital press conference.

Delhi has a total of around 1 lakh cases of covid-19, the highest in any city in the country. However, 70% of the patients have recovered from the disease. There are currently approximately 25,000 active cases of covid-19 in Delhi. 71,339 patients have recovered or been discharged from hospitals who are eligible to donate.

To be eligible to donate plasma, a person should have recovered from covid-19 for 14 days, be in the age bracket of 18-60 and weigh above 50 kgs. However, women who have given birth and people suffering from diabetes or hypertension cannot donate. The entire process of donating plasma takes up to an hour.

The therapy requires drawing blood from patients who have recovered from covid-19 and using the plasma and antibodies from that blood on patients who are suffering. Unlike blood donation, only the plasma is drawn from the blood. Doctors involved in the trial said they use the therapy on patients who are in the second stage of the disease, wherein lungs get affected.

“I urge people to come forward and donate if they have recovered from corona. There will be no problem. The bank is in a non-covid hospital and is completely safe. We will provide you transport to come to the bank. There is a team formed by the government to reach out to patients who have recovered to come out and donate plasma. I appeal to hospitals to also council patients who have recovered to come out and donate plasma after 14 days," he added.