No hospital in Odisha gets approval for COVID-19 plasma therapy

Bhubaneswar: Even through Odisha has earned praise from national and global communities for its continuing efforts in battle against COVID-19, not a single hospital in the state could get approval for conducting second phase of plasma therapy trials on critically ill COVID-19 patients.

As the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has begun clinical trials for convalescent plasma therapy to assess its effectiveness in treatment of COVID-19, the Centre has shortlisted total 21 hospitals in 10 states excluding Odisha to initiate the therapy.

Recently, the ICMR has received approval for clinical trial titled ‘PLACID – Phase-II Open-Label Randomised Controlled Trial’ from the COVID-19 National Ethics Committee to assess the safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma to limit COVID-19 related complications.

However, no hospital from Odisha could make it to the list of hospitals approved for conducting plasma therapy.

Among the hospitals, while 5 are in Maharashtra alone, 16 hospitals have been selected from Gujarat (4), Rajasthan (2), Punjab (1), Tamil Nadu (2), Madhya Pradesh (2), Uttar Pradesh (2), Karnataka (1), Telangana (1) and Chandigarh (1).

The convalescent plasma therapy aims at using antibodies from the blood of a recovered COVID-19 patient to treat other critical patients infected with the deadly virus.