3 Indian-Americans With COVID-19 Respond To Plasma Transfusion

Convalescent Plasma therapy was tried on three Indian-Americans, who are in critical condition with COVID-19 infection in the United States.

They showed signs of recovery on Sunday after being transfused with plasma from recovered corona patients, according to news agency PTI.

Following, plasma transfusion, specific antibodies present in the blood of the recovered person can help fight the viral infection. Antibodies are proteins that fight specific viruses and bacteria. This is considered low risk and has been effective during past epidemics, the report said.

Five patients at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, Texas have been given this treatment. Out of them, three are Indian American – IT professional Rohan Bavadekar, Lavanga Veluswamy and Sushm Singh.

As the vaccines will take 12-18 months to come, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed clinical trials. In case of severe COVID-19 patients, doctors in the US can seek FDA’s permission to use the treatment.

The FDA had recently tapped the Mayo Clinic to evaluate the convalescent plasma treatment’s effectiveness.

Donors for convalescent plasma have to be symptom-free for at least 28 days.

This method was reportedly used in the hemorrhagic fever in 1979 and the Spanish Flu in 1918. But the technique didn’t work for Ebola in 2014.

Currently, the US is leading the chart with the highest number of infections and deaths at 5,60,433 and 22,115 respectively.