Meet the oncologist behind India’s first clinical trial using convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus

For the past few months, the world has been fighting the same enemy: the new coronavirus or COVID-19. Many countries are blocked and life, as we knew it, has been completely turned upside down.

Even though there are preventive measures, a cure for coronavirus is the need of the hour. Across the world, medical teams are rushing to prepare a vaccine, find a cure, and some even start clinical trials for it. Experts believe we can have a vaccine ready by 2021.

In India, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently granted approval to HCG Cancer Center, a private hospital in Bengaluru, to conduct clinical trials in coronavirus patients using convalescent plasma therapy.

In a conversation with Your history Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma, HCG Dr. Vishal Rao He explained what convalescent plasma therapy is and how HCG is using it to treat patients with coronavirus.

Watch the entire interview here.

For starters, Dr. Vishal advises states to build a Chinese wall among people who test positive and negative for the coronavirus. “Only then can we slowly open up the economy,” he says.

According to him, a quarter of the 400 clinical trials running around COVID-19 involve plasma therapy.

Convalescent plasma therapy It is an old theory that has served well in previous influenza outbreaks. It involves using the blood of a convalescent, someone who is recovering from the same disease, since they would have the necessary antibodies to fight the virus.

Simply put, anyone who has recovered from COVID-19 will have the necessary antibodies in their plasma to fight this disease.

For Dr. Vishal, the goal is to get to a point where no one dies of COVID-19 anymore.

“We are a institute focused on oncology And viruses are part of our lives, as they are known to cause cancer. So we have been doing a lot of our work in virus immunology, ”he explains.

Realizing that this work could also be applied to cure the coronavirus, Dr. Vishal and his team at HCG accelerated their work in the past month., supported by research from doctors and scientists from around the world.

Receiving permission from the General Drug Controller of India (DCGI) under the provisions of the New Rules of Drugs and Clinical Trials, 2019, was the first step to success.

“The challenge before us is” we can save all lives currently threatened by the virus, “says Dr. Vishal.

For now, HCG has proposed a phase I clinical trial, similar to how a new drug would be launched.

But will it work? Dr. Vishal is optimistic that the proof of concept for convalescent plasma theory lies in the data on how earlier viruses (influenza, SARS, etc.) could be treated using the same method.

Other Phase I studies on COVID-19 also indicate that convalescent plasma therapy may be effective in curing coronavirus.