Mobilize recovered COVID-19 patients for blood donation, Health Min suggests for early recovery of patients

New Delhi, April 22: "India was the front runner in leading the onslaught against the COVID-19 pandemic and it took all the precautionary measures which could ideally be foreseen", noted Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday while in conversation with dedicated Red Cross warriors from all over India.

 

Minister gave details of efforts made by the Government to deal with COVID-19. Representatives of Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) from Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Telangana, Delhi and Karnataka apprised the Minister about the activities undertaken by their respective branches.

 

“I may like to state that India was the first country in the world to respond to COVID-19 crisis without wasting any time. It was India which responded proactively to China’s first disclosure about Corona Virus to the world. On the very next day India initiated steps to monitor the situation and first Joint Monitoring Group meeting was held. This was enough to set the tone for a highly spirited war against fatal virus across the country", he added.

 

Health Minister further said that earlier the COVID-19 samples were sent to US for testing which took lot of time for results, but during the present crisis India has developed around 200 labs for testing samples. Apart from this India imposed Lockdown at the right time to stop the spread of the dreaded virus. He further informed that right now India has ample number of COVID-19 dedicated hospitals, PPEs, N95 masks, Ventilators and medicines. He said that we are at the better footing as compared to rest of the world.

 

He further exhorted them to keep sufficient blood stock for transfusion by promoting voluntary blood donation and providing facilities of pick up and drop to donors. In addition to this Union Minister asked the Indian Red Cross Society to send mobile blood collection vans to the premises of regular blood donors to facilitate them to come forward for blood donation at this point of time.

 

Dr. Harsh Vardhan exhorted IRCS to contact recovered COVID-19 patients to come forward for blood donation, from which convalescent plasma could be used for transfusion to the Corona affected patients for their early recovery. The IRCS may like to take up this at the earliest so that the blood collected from the recovered patients could be used for transfusion for the benefit of Corona patients.