On Monday night, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), dropped the usage of covalescent plasma from recommended treatment guidelines for COVID-19.
This decision comes a day after ICMR's National Task Force suggested that the plasma therapy lacked effectiveness and was used inappropriately in several cases. In their meeting held on May 16, the members made it clear that they are not in favour of plasma therapy.
The earlier set of guidelines (which has now been replaced), allowed the usage of plasma therapy at the stage of early moderate disease.
In the plasma therapy, antibodies from the blood of a patient who has recovered from COVID-19, was used to treat other patients.
On Tuesday however, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) have come in support of its usage. They have said that plasma therapy can be used in moderate COVID-19 cases and said such patients will need less oxygen with the help of plasma.
- Speaking to ANI, Dr Anil Goel, finance secretary of IMA and urologist said "What the IMA is saying that it (plasma therapy) has been removed as an "off label" use. But it is a clinical step that in moderate cases where oxygen saturation is low, the patient may need less oxygen to stabilize or saturate the oxygen level with the use of plasma."
0 Comments