indica News Bureau-
General physician Dr Ajay Mohan based in New Delhi is currently pursuing MD Medicine & DM Infectious Medicine from AIIMS Delhi recently wrote an article for MyUpchar website advocated the use of convalescent plasma therapy to treat COVID-19 patients.
He wrote, “COVID-19 is an infection caused by SARS-CoV-2, a new coronavirus that was unknown until December 2019. As of 13th April 2020, there were more than 1.8 million cases of this new virus globally and the death toll had crossed one lakh. Doctors and scientists – in their urgent search for a cure or a preventive measure to stop the spread of this infectious disease – have turned their attention to the patients who have recovered from the SARS-CoV-2 infection without any complications.”
He added that the reason why doctors and scientists were pinning their hopes on cured COVID-19 patients, was because the patients now had developed antibodies against the virus, that could be used for curing other infected patients.
“The immune systems of the patients who have recovered have produced antibodies against the virus. These antibodies neutralize the virus and prevent it from infecting the healthy cells. Doctors have found a way to transfer these antibodies into other people – to both prevent and treat the infection: this transfer of ready-made antibodies against the virus is known as passive antibody therapy,” he added.
Dr Mohan explained the difference between vaccines and passive antibody therapies in his article. He wrote, “Our immune system has the ability to detect any foreign object that enters our body. That foreign object is called an antigen. To fight that antigen, the body forms a fighting agent which is called an antibody. Most of us have got vaccinations in childhood to protect us from specific diseases. These vaccinations are called active vaccinations as they do not directly provide immunity to our body – instead, they activate our immune system to form antibodies against the disease.
“However, in passive antibody therapy, the specific antibodies required to kill a specific agent are directly delivered into the body. Passive antibody administration is one of the most potent ways of providing immediate immunity to the people who are susceptible to a specific disease.”
He affirmed that like passive antibody therapy has previously been used for viral diseases such as poliomyelitis, measles, and influenza in the 1920s, they will also prove to be successful in limiting, if not eradicating the novel coronavirus form the world.
