A 35-year-old man from Sarlahi, Nepal who had been having undergoing treatment of coronavirus infection at the ICU ward of Narayani Hospital, has died at 10:02 am on Sunday.
The person has been admitted to Narayani Hospital on August 29 and was confirmed to have a coronavirus infection.
According to the doctor of Narayani hospital, “the person had returned from the DIC (Disseminated intravascular coagulation) stage, his condition was improving after the plasma therapy, but today all the doctors at Narayani Hospital are saddened by the death.”
After conducting the first-ever transfusion of plasma to treat a COVID-19 patient in late July, a Nepali hospital has treated five critically ill patients of COVID-19 with the plasma therapy so far.
The first patient to be treated with this method in Nepal was a 60-year-old man who has already returned home after recovery.
DIC is a condition in which blood clots form throughout the body, blocking small blood vessels. This stage is internal bleeding from various parts of the body. This stage patients have a very low chance of survival. But, also doctors of Narayani hospital were trying their best.
Doctors at Narayani Hospital says, “there is still a lot of research to be done on plasma therapy, and the belief that plasma therapy can cure all infections needs to be removed.”
Earlier, an infected person had died in Chitwan, Nepal while undergoing treatment with plasma therapy. This is the second case.
Plasma therapy is a method of treatment in which blood from people who've recovered from an illness is used to help others recover. It is not a universally accepted method of treating COVID-19 patients and is being used as a test case in many countries, not just in Nepal.
As the number of critical patients in Nepal has been growing along with the resurgence in COVID-19 cases, the Nepali government has allowed 17 hospitals of the country to treat patients with plasma therapy.
Blood donated by people who've recovered from COVID-19 has antibodies to the virus that causes it. The donated blood is processed to remove blood cells, leaving behind liquid (plasma) and antibodies. These can be given to people with COVID-19 to boost their ability to fight the virus. There are some beliefs that plasma therapy may help people recover from COVID-19. It may lessen the severity or shorten the length of the disease.
The risk of getting COVID-19 from plasma hasn't been tested yet. But some researchers believe that the risk is low because donors have fully recovered from the infection.
According to the research, plasma therapy has some risks, such as:
The group of researchers and doctors around the world from different institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, are investigating and applying convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized convalescent plasma therapy for people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The FDA is allowing its use during the pandemic because there's no approved treatment for COVID-19.
As this is just a trial therapy that may not work in all the cases.
In recent days, the number of critically infected patients from COVID-19 is on the rise as the disease is spreading in clusters of communities of Nepal.
The pandemic has killed over 289 people in Nepal while over 46,257 people have already been infected as of Sunday, the ministry said.
