Over 2,000 patients benefitted from plasma therapy, ICMR shouldn't remove it: Jain

New Delhi: Delhi Health minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday asserted that over 2,000 COVID-19 patients here have benefitted from plasma therapy which also saved his life, a day after a top ICMR official indicated that the Centre was considering removing it from the clinical management protocol.

At a press conference, Jain also said these patients received convalescent plasma through the dedicated plasma banks of the city government, besides other people getting it directly from donors.

The first plasma bank was opened on July 2 by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at the state-run Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) in South Delhi. After that another bank was opened at LNJP Hospital, a dedicated Coronavirus facility.

"We have been doing it (plasma therapy) trials after getting due permission. The ICMR-AIIMS study has not shown many breakthroughs. But people are getting benefitted from it here, and over 2,000 have benefitted by receiving plasma from the dedicated bank only," Jain said when asked about the Centre considering removing it from COVID-19 clinical management protocol.

The Delhi Health minister, himself a COVID-19 survivor, asserted that "this has helped save my life too".

Jain had tested positive for COVID-19 in June and was hospitalised. He was later administered plasma therapy at a leading private hospital here, following which he had recovered and later also urged others to donate plasma.

"Even America has acknowledged its benefit. And, research is going on it world over. Delhi in a way is a pioneer in it and plasma therapy benefits have been seen," he said.

The Centre is considering removing convalescent plasma therapy from the national clinical management protocol for COVID-19, a top ICMR official had said on Tuesday.

At a press conference on Tuesday, ICMR Director General Balaram Bhargava said: "We have had discussions in the national taskforce and we are in discussion with the joint monitoring group that this (convalescent plasma therapy) may be deleted from the national guidelines. The discussion is ongoing and more or less we are reaching towards that."

On Wednesday, the national Capital recorded 3,686 positive cases in the last 24 hours while there were 47 deaths in the same period.