Background & Aim: As on date, no specific treatment is available for devastating COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. This pandemic viral infection has affected over 200 countries within a very short time and created a calamitous situation across the globe. As per WHO guidelines, the treatment is mainly symptomatic and supportive. This clinical protocol has not proven sufficient to save the lives of COVID-19 patients suffering from diabetes or having underlying liver diseases; hence there is utmost need to tackle this situation by other means such as Convalescent Plasma (CP) therapy. Methods: A comprehensive literature survey was carriedout using Elsevier, PubMed, Taylor & Francis, Springer, Nature and Google search engines. Results: The patients suffering from diabetes or liver dysfunction or any other underlying diseases are at greatest risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. From the study, it is proved that plasma collected from the recovered patients of viral infection has considerable potential to treat the viral disease without the occurrence of adverse effects. Conclusion: The CP therapy can be a possible life saving alternative to treat critical COVID-19 patients having diabetes or underlying liver dysfunction. Hence, randomised clinical trials are recommended at the earliest to save the lives of infected individuals of COVID-19.
In India transmission of transfusion transmissible infections (TTI) has shown a relative decrease as a result of mandatory screening of donated blood for TTI's. However, reducing the incidence of non infectious complications poses a major challenge, mainly due to the fact that a number of adverse reactions go unreported. Blood transfusion reaction, can be categorized based on the time interval between transfusion of blood products and the presentation of adverse reactions as acute i.e. those presenting during or within 24 h and as delayed i.e. those presenting anytime after 24 h. Transfusion reactions can further be classified as immune and non immune or infectious and non infectious based on the pathophysiology. In this retrospective study which was undertaken with an aim to determine the type and frequency of non infectious complications due to transfusion of blood and blood products recorded the incidence of febrile non hemolytic transfusion reactions (FNHTR) 51.40 %, allergic reactions 40.14 %, non immune hemolytic reactions 4.22 %, hypothermia 2.81 %, anaphylaxis 0.70 % and iron overload 0.70 %. FNHTR which was found to be the most common complication in this study can certainly be minimized, if not completely eliminated by adopting a policy of universal leucodepletion, the implementation of which solely depends on the financial and infrastructure resources available. This study also reiterates the importance of hemovigilance as a tool to improve the safety of blood transfusion.
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