MUMBAI: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has announced conduct the trial for plasma therapy for serious patients suffering from Covid-19. This will be the initial way also for the first official clinical trial in India towards finding a cure for the nove coronavirus.
It is not clear whether the private organisations can participate in the trial but ICMR has asked medical institutions, including those of state governments, which are interested in participating in the trial to register themselves with the clinical trial ethics committee, and the Drug Controller of India.
The ICMR said in a statement on Sunday that “Convalescent plasma is an experimental procedure for Covid-19 patients. Hospitals and institutions planning to provide this modality of treatment should do so in a clinical trial with protocols which are cleared by the institutional ethics committee,” The main objective of the study is to ensure the safety of therapeutic plasma exchange in Covid-19 patients.
The therapy works on the science that the blood of a recovered Covid-19 patient would have developed antibodies against the coronavirus and when these antibodies are injected to an infected person, these would neutralize the virus on his body.
