On April 17, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in his online briefing said that the Delhi government has got permission from the centre to begin the clinical trials of the plasma therapy. The plasma therapy will be tried on the patients who are severely ill and on the ventilators. Currently, plasma therapy is the most promising treatment for COVID-19.

The CM further said that the result of the trial will be out in three to four days from now. We hope that the therapy will work positively on the critical patients and we will be able to save the lives.

“There is an improvement in the condition of several COVID-19 patients. They were admitted in the last week of March to hospitals. Some patients admitted on the first week of April is improving now and many of them will be discharged in the next three-four days. They were suffering from heart or respiratory diseases and were at a higher risk of losing their lives. Use of plasma technology in such cases, can save lives,” the CM said.

Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal

Plasma Therapy

The plasma enrichment technique involves a rich amount of the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19. The blood of the recovered patient will have anti-bodies that help the person recovery from COVID-19. Plasma is then extracted from the blood. The extracted blood is then augmented, and is then injected into an infected person. The antibodies in the blood of the recovered patient are then injected in the body of the infected patient and help them recover.

Criteria of a blood donor

  • The donor should be coronavirus recovered patient first.
  •  The person must have tested negative twice after being infected.
  • Then after the 14 days, isolation donor should not show any symptoms.

ICMR statement

“The ICMR is not an authority for giving approvals. We have put out our protocols. Whoever will follow our protocols, we will work with them. Others can approach the department for a separate clinical trial,” The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said at the daily briefings of Health Ministry on COVID-19.

The plasma therapy requires permission from Drug Controller of India. To conduct this process, relaxation in blood donation norms is necessary.

Centre allowed other states as well

Kerala and Maharashtra are also allowed to conduct the trial.

Current scenario in Delhi

On April 18 the count of COVID-19 positive surpassed the count of 1000 with 42 deaths and 0 recoveries.

Operation SHIELD

SHIELD stands for Sealing an area, home quarantine, Isolation, Essential supplies, L is for local sanitation and D stands for Door to Door.

The geographical marking of the containment zone will be sealed entirely. Followed by home quarantining of the people there. Then the people who are asymptomatic carriers of the virus will be traced and isolated.

The daily necessities food and supplies will be delivered to each house. Local sanitization and disinfection will be done including door to door checking. The immediate steps will help to tackle people who have symptoms of coronavirus.

This step will ramp up the process of finding carriers and getting them tested as soon as possible, reducing the chances of further infection.