The Maharashtra Government has issued a notification on the application of plasma therapy to Covid-19 patients in the state government, private, civic and charitable hospitals as per the protocol released by the Union Health Ministry. The government notification coincided with the launching of the convalescent plasma therapy trial cum treatment project for severe Covid-19 patients in the state.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope and Minister of Medical Education and Drugs Amit Deshmukh on different occasions have said that plasma therapy has yielded positive results since its application was started in March. Thackeray has urged Covid-19 survivors to donate plasma.
The government said the notification was necessary to include plasma therapy in the Covid-19 treatment protocol released by the Union Health Ministry. Convalescent plasma (Off Label) maybe considered in patients with moderate disease who are not improving (where oxygen requirement in the patient is progressively increasing) despite use of steroids.
Special pre-requisites while considering convalescent plasma include cross-matching of the donor plasma and neutralizing titer of donor plasma should be above the specified threshold. Recipients should be closely monitored for several hours post-transfusion for any transfusion related adverse events.
The dose varies in the range of 4 to 13 ml/kg (usually 200 ml single dose given slowly over not less than 2 hours).
The government has asked the hospitals to regularly submit details with regard to the results of the application of plasma therapy and the number of patients to the Indian Council of Medical Research, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the state Public Health Department, district collectors and municipal commissioners.
