New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday said that plasma therapy is not a proven therapy for treatment of COVID-19 and is still in the experimental stage.
"There is no therapy in the world for COVID-19. Plasma therapy is not a proven therapy. It is still in the experimental stage and there is no evidence to use this as treatment. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is studying the efficacy of this therapy," said Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, here on Tuesday.
Plasma therapy isn't a proven therapy. It's still in experimental stage, right now ICMR is doing it as an experiment to identify&do additional understanding of this therapy. Till it's approved no one should use it,it'll be harmful to patient&illegal: Lav Aggarwal, Health Ministry pic.twitter.com/MFjgpWyb25
— ANI (@ANI) April 28, 2020
Agarwal also cautioned about the use of this therapy."Until ICMR concludes its study and a robust scientific proof is available, Plasma therapy should be used only for research or trial purposes. There can even be life-threatening complications if plasma therapy is not used as per guidelines. Until and unless this is approved as a therapy for COVID-19, it is unjustified to spread any claim about the effectiveness of this therapy," he said.
"We are doing better than other countries. We are taking pro-active measures to combat COVID-19. Our countrymen are supporting the administration in the fight against COVID-19," he added. (ANI)
