LAHORE: A Pakistani charity organization, Al-Khidmat Foundation, has stepped up to beat the coronavirus pandemic by starting free blood plasma donation service for virus patients to introduce passive immunity against the disease.
The facility became operational on Thursday in the eastern city of Lahore which has over 11,000 reported cases.
“We are the first welfare organization in the country in non-governmental sector that has started plasma service for COVID 19 patients free of cost,” Abdul Shakoor, head of Al-Khidmat Foundation, told Arab News on Thursday, adding that Dr. Tahir Shamsi, Chairman of the National Institute of Blood Diseases, was supervising the project.
The kit being used by Al-Khidmat lab to extract plasma from the donor’s blood. (Photo courtesy: Alkhidmat health services)
There is no formal treatment for COVID-19 and blood plasma therapy is a tried and tested method to treat such diseases, Dr. Shamsi said. “It is like treating the Hepatitis B infected people or rabies or the snake bite infected persons.”
“Plasma therapy enables the medics to extract plasma from the blood of the people recovered from the disease and transfuse it into the body of critically-ill patients to provide them passive immunity to fight this deadly virus. In COVID 19, this is the effective procedure to cure the patients”, Dr. Shamshi said while speaking at the inauguration ceremony on Wednesday, a day before the commencement of formal operations.
This service is currently only available in Lahore but not limited to the patients under treatment at Al-Khidmat centers.
“Any patient admitted at any health facility – PLKI (Pakistan Liver and Kidney Institute), Mayo Hospital or any other hospital would be served free of cost by Al-Khidmat,” Shakoor said.
The service will be extended to other cities like Karachi, Peshawar, and Faisalabad as soon as the organization’s COVID-19 labs started their operations in these cities, he added.
The Foundation has the data of people who have successfully recovered from COVID-19 and contacts them for donating their blood plasma to other virus patients.
“We have the data of all the people who got themselves checked at our COVID-19 center and tested positive for coronavirus. They later defeated the disease and tested negative. We are contacting those people and convincing them for donation of plasma. On the first day, we contacted 20 people and only two agreed to donate,” Tariq Waheed, Manager Health Services at Al-Khidmat Blood Lab told Arab News.
Image of the machine used to extract plasma at Al-Khidmat lab. (Photo courtesy: Alkhidmat health services)
The lab is conducting over 300 COVID-19 test every day. “As per our data there are more than 1500 people who have recovered from Coronavirus since we started the testing facility and we will contact them all,” Waheed said.
Currently with only two cell separator machines installed, the lab has the daily capacity of preparing plasma for 16 people. “It takes one and half hour to extract plasma from one person. We are able to extract plasma for 16 people per day with two cell separator machines,” Syed Anwar Alam, Project Manager of Al-Khidmat Lab, told Arab News.
Shoaib Hashmi, media manager of the charity said: “It cost Rs30,000 for one bag in the market but Al-Khidmat is providing the service completely free of cost to serve humanity.”
Pakistan’s national tally on Thursday reached 123,201 with 2,410 deaths reported countrywide and 38,547 patients having recovered thus far, according to health ministry’s national dashboard for COVID-19.
