Assam starts plasma therapy at Gauhati Medical College on Thursday

July 9: Many options are being explored to treat COVID-19. These include new drugs specifically designed to target SARS-CoV-2, as well as “repurposed” drugs – that is, existing drugs designed to treat a different disease. By far the oldest treatment being tested, though, is convalescent plasma. This involves using blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 and infusing it into patients who currently have the disease.

As the number of novel coronavirus cases are on the rise in Assam, the state health department on Thursday started plasma therapy to treat the patients. State Health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma joined the doctors and nurses on the occasion of administering of first plasma at Gauhati Medical College & Hospital (GMCH) ICU. 

Plasma is the liquid portion of blood that remains when all red and white blood cells and platelets have been removed. It was over a hundred years ago that Emil Behring was awarded the first Nobel prize for physiology and medicine for his work demonstrating that plasma could be used to treat diphtheria.

This method has a simple premise. The blood of people who have recovered from an infection contains antibodies. Antibodies are molecules that have learned to recognize and fight the pathogens, such as viruses, that have caused disease. Doctors can separate plasma, one of the blood components that contain such antibodies, and administer it to people whose bodies are currently fighting an infectious disease. This can help their immune systems reject the pathogen more efficiently. Recently, researchers and healthcare professionals have been looking into the possibility of using this method to treat people with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Compliments to our doctors as we started #plasmatherapy today. I am glad I joined the doctors and nurses on the occasion of administering of first plasma at GMCH ICU. #Plasma therapy offers us good hope.

I urge all potential donors to come forward and donate their plasma. pic.twitter.com/tNXxvzwa0s

— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) July 9, 2020

Sharing this information, State Health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted, “Compliments to our doctors as we started #plasmatherapy today. I am glad I joined the doctors and nurses on the occasion of administering of first plasma at GMCH ICU. #Plasma therapy offers us good hope. I urge all potential donors to come forward and donate their plasma.”