Plasma Bazaar Makes A Killing In Covid-Hit City

Exposed! Many cured patients & brokers sell ‘life saver’ to critically ill for up to ₹5 lakh amid huge demand-supply gap

- Jamshed Khan, Md Hizbullah and Nitin Jain

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

37,724 CASES IN INDIA, TOTAL 11,92,915

648 MORE DEATHS, TOLL MOUNTS TO 28,732

1,227 CASES IN DELHI, TALLY NOW 1,26,323

29 MORE DEATHS, TOLL MOUNTS TO 3,719

Recovery rate in country rises to 63.13% with record 28,472 Covid-19 patients recuperating in 24 hours.

A sero-survey to be held in Delhi every month now, next round from Aug 1 to 5.

PLASMA therapy, though not a magic bullet, has spurred a global drive to treat the Covid sick with the antibody-rich blood of recovered patients because of its promising results.

But an India Today TV investigation has unearthed a growing black-market for the “life-saver” as despair drives families to buy anything they can to save loved ones battling the deadly and highly contagious disease.

Invented in the 1890s to cure diphtheria, plasma therapy helped reduce fatalities during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Doctors across the world are now trialling the same technique on moderately-ill Covid patients.

Studies on plasma therapy in coronavirus treatments have also delivered encouraging results. We are encouraged that our initial assessment offers evidence in support of convalescent plasma as an effective intervention, said Dr. Nicole Bouvier, an associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York) and a co-author on a new research, in May.

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