Jaipur, May 7 (IANS): Rajasthan Health Minister Dr Raghu Sharma on Wednesday formally launched plasma therapy treatment for Covid-9 patients at the SMS Medical College here.

On Tuesday, its attached SMS Hospital had become the first hospital in the state to have conducted a successful trial of this much-discussed therapy on two Covid-19 positive patients.

In his address at the launch, through video conferencing, Sharma said: "SMS Medical College received permission from the ICMR to conduct clinical trial of 20 critical patients with this therapy. Thereafter, plasma therapy trials started in the state on the instructions of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and it was formally launched from Wednesday after obtaining the permission of ICMR.

He congratulated SMS Medical College's Principal Dr Sudheer Bhandari and his entire team for successful conduct of the plasma therapy, saying that the doctors team at Sawai Man Singh Hospital are providing world-class screening and treatment facilities for Covid-19 patients.

CT scan, pulmonary angiography, ultrasonography of the lung, and high-level blood tests are being done for Covid-19 patients at SMS Medical College.

It was this team of the medical college which first included hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19 patients and its results were quite successful, Sharma said.

During the video conference, Additional Chief Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said that SMS Medical College has been doing a great job in all areas of sampling and contact tracing.

Medical Education Secretary Vaibhav Galriya said that efforts are being made to check corona spread with proper management.

Dr Bhandari shared a detailed information about plasma therapy. "Plasma samples of corona patients who tested negative will only be taken after they are tested 28 days later," he said adding "Two patients in the SMS hospital have responded very well to the plasma therapy treatment and shall soon be discharged."

The principal said that plasma therapy has yielded very positive results in the initial trial. This therapy started as per the ICMR guideline and is conducted only after the patient's blood group is matched, he added.

The two patients recovered include one aged 63 years and the other 54 years. While One has A+ blood group, the other was had O+.

Bhandari said that the patients treated under plasma therapy need to be under eligible category. First, the matchmaking is done in terms of blood groups. The donors' blood group should match the receiver's blood group.

"Luckily, we found the donors for both the groups O+ and A+ who had turned Covid-19 negative a few days back and had developed anti-bodies which were for these two Covid-19 patients," he said.