CRACKING THE COVID CURE CODE

Between January and March this year, a team of doctors at China’s Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen performed convalescent blood plasma transfusion on five critically ill COVID-19 patients suffering from acute respiratory distress. With guarded optimism, the team spent the next few weeks studying the after-effects on the patients. To their delight, and the global medical fraternity’s interest, the results offered hope. Within 10 days of receiving plasma harvested from individuals previously cured of COVID-19, three of the five patients saw their condition improve and the viral load reduce. They were eventually discharged.

It’s still early days, but medical experts believe the Chinese experience has demonstrated that convalescent blood plasma therapy can help patients develop critical antibodies against COVID-19 which, as of April 22, had globally infected 2,585,193 people (19,818 in India) and claimed 179,838 lives (652 in India). About 55 per cent of our blood is a liquid called plasma; the rest are red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets suspended