Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated India’s first ‘Plasma Bank’ through video conference on July 2, 2020. The plasma bank has been set up for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in Delhi.
The Delhi Government had announced its intention to set up the unique plasma bank on June 29. The Delhi CM had issued an appeal to all recovered COVID-19 patients to come forward and donate their plasma in the bank to help in the treatment of other coronavirus patients.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said there are now 1,065 testing labs in the country — 768 in the public sector and 297 in private.
It also added that the daily testing capacity is also growing fast and it was around 1.5 lakh per day on May 25.
The ICMR said as many as 2,29,588 samples were tested on Wednesday, which took the cumulative number to 90,56,173.
The Union Health Ministry, meanwhile, said the total number of people being tested for COVID-19 in the country will soon touch one crore.
“This has been (made) possible due to the removal of all bottlenecks by the government of India. Various steps taken by the Central government have paved the way for enhanced testing for COVID-19,” the ministry said.
“Those wanting plasma, the hospital will contact the plasma bank. Individuals should not call the number or try and contact the plasma bank. All hospitals that need plasma will be given if the doctor recommends plasma therapy. But first, we need donors,” the Chief Minister said.
Mr. Kejriwal said there was a reduction in number of deaths in Delhi but this needed to be brought down further. Until a vaccine was developed, plasma donation was the only way to prevent COVID-19 deaths, he said. There was a need to encourage people to donate and dispel all misinformation about plasma donation, he added.
