New Delhi, May 8 (IANS): The Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare on Friday said that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has got approval from the National Ethics Committee for the trail of convalescent plasma therapy to assess its effectiveness in the treatment of COVID-19.

Speaking at a press conference, Joint Secretary of the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said, "ICMR has received approval for Project PLACID - Phase-II Open-Label Randomised Controlled Trial from the COVID-19 National Ethics Committee."

Agarwal also said that under this project, the ICMR will conduct trial in 21 hospitals to assess safety and efficacy of convalescent plasma on COVID-19 patients. The 21 hospitals include 5 hospitals from Maharashtra, 4 from Gujarat, 2 hospitals each from Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and 1 hospital each in Punjab, Karnataka, Telangana and Chandigarh.

The convalescent plasma therapy aims at using antibodies from the blood of a recovered Covid-19 patient to treat those critically affected by the virus. As on Friday a total of 16,539 people have defeated novel coronavirus and have recovered from the disease. The recovery rate has improved to 29.36 per cent, said Agarwal.

The total tally of novel coronavirus cases in India stood at 56,342 including 3,390 new cases and 103 new fatalities.