BS RAWAT

The Delhi Government has announced setting up of its second ‘plasma bank' for treatment of Covid-19 patients in the national capital, and said it will start operating next week.

The bank pools plasma from people in East Delhi and nearby areas who recovered from Covid-19 so that moderately ill patients can have better access to plasma therapy.

AAP legislator Dilip Pandey, who is helping the government set up the bank, said that the bank will be set up at the Delhi government-run Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi and doctors or hospitals will approach it for plasma if a Covid-19 patient needs the same.

He clarified that the final approval from Drug Controller General of India is awaited to make it operational.

The AAP leader said the GTB plasma bank will be able to extract plasma from 7-8 Covid recovered persons in 10 hours.

 “The set-up is relatively smaller than the one at Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), which has three plasma extraction machines compared to one in GTB, though we can increase it any day if demand increases,” he said.

The first plasma bank in Delhi, also India’s first, opened in ILBS on July 2. Since then, only about 100 persons have come forward to donate their plasma, creating a huge demand and supply gap.