A second patient suffering from Covid-19 is being administered plasma at the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH), a day after the first patient, to have undergone the therapy, successfully recovered at the same facility.

The second patient is a 64-year-old woman from Naushahro Feroze district, who was transfused plasma under the supervision of senior doctors of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) and the LUH on Thursday night. She was brought to the LUH on May 6.

“She is also stable,” said LUH’s focal person for Covid-19, Dr Aftab Hussain Phul, on Friday evening.

Clinical trials for convalescent plasma therapy were approved by Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) on April 9. Later, the Sindh government notified three hospitals for trial of plasma therapy as a passive immunisation strategy, proposed by noted haematologist, Dr Tahir Shamsi, on an experimental basis.

“In the clinical trials, it has been generally observed that if a patient, whose health condition necessitates putting him/her on ventilator, is administered plasma timely, they start showing great improvement and resultantly the patient then doesn’t require the support of a ventilator,” Dr Shamsi told Dawn.com.