Plasma therapy got underway in Odisha after a COVID-19 patient was injected with plasma at a private hospital at Cuttack.
“One unit of B+ve Plasma was transfused to a 48 years COVID-19 patient at Ashwini COVID Hospital,” the Health and Family Welfare Department said in a statement on Thursday.
Plasma collection was also carried out from four convalescent donors at the State-run SCB Medical College Hospital, which has been recognised as a nodal centre for a plasma bank.
With this, Odisha has become the third State after Delhi and Maharashtra to have introduced convalescent plasma therapy for the treatment of serious COVID-19 patients.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had appealed to eligible COVID-19 survivors to come forward to donate their plasma, which would go a long way in helping with the treatment of serious COVID-19 patients.
Among the 12 cured COVID-19 patients who have come forward to donate their plasma is Salepur legislator Prasanta Behera.
As of now, 79 patients who had tested positive have succumbed to disease. The highest number of 48 deaths has been reported from Ganjam, the worst affected district in the State. The State government attributed an additional 24 deaths to causes other than COVID-19.
According to the State government, most patients with comorbidities have died, while the State’s fatality rate is estimated to be 0.52%.
Odisha’s COVID-19 death toll accounts for 0.32% of India’s total, whereas patients recovered from the disease in Odisha constitute 1.71% to the total percentage of recovered patients in India.
Meanwhile, the State’s total number of confirmed cases has crossed the 15,000-mark, following the addition of 494 positive cases on Thursday. During the past fortnight, the State’s COVID-19 positive cases have doubled from 7,316 on July 1 to 15,392 on July 16. During the same period, Ganjam’s total number of cases has tripled from 1,583 to 4,867.
