Sewa International sets up Covid-19 plasma therapy programme

Sewa International, a US Hindu organisation, has set up a distinctive programme for COVID-19 survivors to come forward and donate their blood plasma for a therapy to save severely ill patients with respiratory failure. Its online registry connects donors and recipients who want to participate in the COVID-19 treatment and has also set up a phone hotline to help them.

The plasma therapy has been approved for research by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It extracts the blood plasma containing the antibodies created to fight the virus by a person who has recovered and injects it into a person suffering from the disease so that the antibodies can help fight the disease. But the only condition for this is that the donors have to be free of COVID-19 for at least 28 days if the disease was serious or at least 14 days if it was mild.

Sewa President Sree Sreenath stated that the organisation is collaborating with partners in India to create a registry here since the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is allowing clinical trials of the therapy.