A 53-year-old man, who was Maharashtra’s first COVID-19 patient to be treated using plasma therapy died at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai recently.
As per reports, the patient was transfused with 200 ml of plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient on Saturday.
Although the patient had initially shown some signs of improvement, he was again reported to be critical within 24 hours.
However, his condition started deteriorating extremely from Tuesday and he died at 11.30 pm on Wednesday.
The patient who was brought to the hospital on April 20 had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and succumbed due to septicaemia.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had recently stated that there are presently no approved therapies for COVID-19 and plasma therapy is still at an experimental stage.
“Regarding plasma therapy for COVID-19, ICMR has already stated clearly that currently there are no approved therapies for COVID-19 including plasma therapy,” the ministry stated.
“It is one of the many therapies which are being experimented with. However, so far there is no evidence to support it as a treatment. ICMR has also started a National Study to evaluate the efficacy of the therapy,” it said.
However, a hospital in Delhi had recently claimed to have successfully cured a 49-year-old man using plasma therapy who was also later discharged from the hospital.