KARACHI: On Saturday, Pakistan’s renowned hematologist announced a successful passive immuinisation clinical trial after a patient with coronavirus recovered from plasma therapy.
“Alhamdolillah, (by the grace of Allah), the first coronavirus patient treated through passive immuinisation has recovered, and discharged from the hospital,” Dr Tahir Shamis, head of the National Institute of Blood Diseases, told Anadolu Agency.
According to a news source he, however, refused to reveal the patient’s specifics, and the hospital where he was treated.
He added that many Covid-19 patients were currently undergoing plasma therapy, as the authorities had set a goal of 350 patients for the clinical trial.
Eight licensed clinical trial facilities across Pakistan for convalescent plasma have already started the process of collecting the plasma from patients recovered from coronavirus.
“Let me make it very clear that it’s a successful clinical trial only. We cannot declare it an approved treatment for the novel virus at this stage,” said Shamsi , who heads the team of hematologists that has been assigned for the clinical trials.
“We still have to wait to say something definitive in this regard after more and more successful clinical trials,” he maintained.
Passive immunization is not a new medical treatment and has been undertaken for 125 years.
The therapy has been used in recent years to treat patients with diseases such as SARS, Ebola and influenza, according to Shamsi.
At present, he went on to say, the method was being used in some 80 countries at 1,500 hospitals to cure the patients infected with coronavirus.
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