Swamy Vivekananda voluntary blood bank near the corporation circle in Bengaluru was crowded on Friday, with desperate family members of Covid-19 patients pleading with strangers to donate plasma after the donors they brought with them could not clear the requisite tests. Two days later, on Monday, the blood bank wore a deserted look after it stopped taking more plasma request.
“We have run out of the apheresis kits. Until we get a fresh lot, we won’t be able to restart. We have spoken to companies, but they don’t have any stocks. We can’t say for sure when the supplies will reach us,” said a staff member of the blood bank.
Plasma therapy, broadly known as ‘convalescent plasma therapy’, is a procedure to treat Covid-19 patients with the plasma of a person who has recovered from the infection.
Several blood banks across the city said they were getting at least 10-15 calls per day for plasma. However, they were facing difficulties in finding donors, which has escalated problems for both blood banks and relatives of Covid patients.
At Jeevaraksha blood bank, four plasma apheresis procedures were done on Monday. “There is a high demand for A+ group and most of the people are struggling to find donors. In our system, if anyone takes plasma, they also have to make plasma donation. We see people making frantic calls to get donors every day,” said Abdul Rahaman Shariff, a staff of the blood bank.
Shariff said in seven cases, they were able to provide plasma without a donor because some volunteers had made plasma donation at the blood bank, which has now run out of stock.
Stating that the blood bank performed at least 26 plasma apheresis last month, Shariff pointed out that the demand for plasma has gone up in the recent times as compared to the first wave of the pandemic. “We have enough kits to last for at least a month. But we also hear that there isn’t enough stock of the kits in the market, as such high demand was not expected,” Shariff said.
At Sankalp India Foundation, a Bengaluru-based non-government organisation working for blood donation, volunteers said they were not able to find many donors, adding that they would call any number from which they receive a missed call, in hope that it was a donor. “We are not getting donors and there is a huge demand,” said Akansha, a volunteer at the foundation.
At Bengaluru’s Victoria Hospital, its blood bank could only provide plasma to three patients this month since there were no donors, a staff member from the hospital said.
With the Karnataka government imposing a 14-day lockdown, hopes of getting more people to donate plasma were also fading away. “There have been advertisements from the government and other campaigns asking those who have recovered from Covid-19 to come forward to donate plasma, but the response has been poor. With the lockdown in place, no one will come out now. The government should allow people to donate and make arrangements for the same during the lockdown,” said a staff member at the Victoria Hospital blood bank.
Even though a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) across 39 hospitals in September last year had found that Convalescent plasma therapy failed to benefit Covid-19 patients, many doctors in the city swear by the treatment protocol.
Recently, cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, who recovered from Covid-19 after being hospitalised last month, has offered to donate plasma and urged others who have recovered from the infection to follow suit.
The latest guidelines, released by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, ICMR-Covid-19 national task force, and the joint monitoring group under the Union health ministry, said that plasma can be administered in early moderate disease within seven days of the onset of Covid-19 symptoms.
As the city finds it difficult to manage the demand for plasma, healthcare professionals are requesting people to come forward to donate. “There is no need to be concerned about safety. We understand the value of every donor and ensure that the procedure is done keeping safety as a priority. But we want more people to come forward and donate,” said Shariff.
