The Sindh Health Department on Thursday permitted three hospitals in the province to use plasma of recovered patients of COVID-19 for passive immunisation therapy on an experimental basis. Dr Ruth KM Pfau Civil Hospital, Karachi, Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad and National Institute of Blood Disease, Karachi have been allowed to experimentally use “Coronavirus Convalescent Plasma” for passive immunization to treat positive cases. According to a notification issued by the health department on Thursday, a team of experts will supervise the process at these hospitals.The team will include physician/infectious disease specialist, ICU specialist, consultant haematologist, and representative of Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA). Earlier, one member of an eight-member committee formed to examine the use of plasma in treating coronavirus patients by Sindh government, Tahir Shamsi had said that Sindh’s research can be benefited from by other provinces in the country. Dr Shamsi said that coronavirus cases had seen a steep rise in the country and he was hopeful of getting samples from cured patients belonging to Lahore, Peshawar and Sukkur.Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has allowed clinical trials of blood plasma therapy to treat coronavirus patients in the country. Plasma, the fluid in blood teeming with antibodies post-illness, has already proven effective in small studies to treat infectious diseases including Ebola and SARS. It is pertinent to mention that the idea is relatively simple, and based on the concept of passive immunity. People who have recovered from an COVID-19 infection have likely done so because their immune systems developed strong immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the illness. As a key part of their response, they make antibodies, including both general microbial killers and specialized cells that target just the proteins found on SARS-CoV-2. In theory, these antibodies could be taken from a recovered COVID-19 patient, and infused into someone recently infected with the virus. “The thought is that if you passively infuse someone who is actively sick, the antibodies may temporarily help a sick person fight infection more effectively, and get well a little bit quicker,” says Dr. Bruce Sachais, chief medical officer of New York Blood Center Enterprises.
