In recent developments, a plasma bank in Nalasopara became the first standalone facility in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) to arrange for a donor and supply plasma to a critically-ill patient on Wednesday, July 8, 2020.
Meanwhile, the entry of the independent plasma bank has raised concerns with regards to pricing. Sathiya Trust Blood Bank in Nalasopara has fixed the charges at ₹20,000 which happens to be exorbitantly high for a lot of people across the spectrum. However, blood plasma therapy happens to be an inherently expensive procedure as hospitals registered under the municipal corporations have also been charging ₹15,000 for 200ml of plasma. According to media sources, the donor further gets an appreciation card along with a discount of ₹2,000 for plasma that can be redeemed within a year of donation, for family members as well.
Plasma therapy with regards to the novel coronavirus pertains to the method in which the blood plasma is taken from the patients who have recovered from COVID-19 infection and are then added to the cell cultures in order to effectively let the antibodies in the plasma neutralize the virus and save the life of a newly infected person. In order to be eligible to become a plasma donor, the person has to have been infected with the coronavirus and completely recovered. The individual would further need to complete 28 days from the time of testing negative and needs to have a haemoglobin level of 12.5 grams per deciliter.
In the past, the Indian Council of Medical Research had been offering permissions to selected hospitals to conduct convalescent plasma therapy on patients affected by the coronavirus. The ICMR had allowed Kasturba and Nair hospital in Mumbai, which are run by the BMC, to conduct plasma trials. The ICMR, so far, has approved trials for plasma therapy at 28 institutions, with the six of them being in the state of Maharashtra.
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