Hyderabad, July 16 (Hydnow): Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy on Thursday formally launched the Telangana Plasma Donors Association, an NGO to create awareness among people who recovered from Covid-19 to donate their plasma to save other Covid-19 patients.
The logo of TPDA was unveiled at a press conference at Hyderabad Press Club, Somajiguda on Thursday. The office bearers of the Association were also named on the occasion. Gudur Narayana Reddy is the President, P. Rathore is named Vice President, Satyanarayana Reddy will be Secretary and A. Narender will be the Treasurer.
Addressing a press conference later, Gudur said that the initiative was taken to provide timely and much needed aid to the critical patients of Covid-19. He said, “This is purely to serve the patients without any discrimination and without indulging into any kind of politics. Covid patients are in urgent and inevitable need of Plasma today,” he said.
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Minutes after launching the Association, Reddy, along with other office bearers, met Health Minister Etala Rajender to request him to frame guidelines for Plasma donations in Telangana. Responding to his request, the Health Minister called the Director of Medical Education, Director of Public Health and other senior officials asking them to gather information from the Governments of Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha and other States on the steps taken by them to boost plasma therapy. He asked them to frame the guidelines or Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) to encourage Plasma therapy in the State.
During the meeting, Reddy assured the Health Minister that he would rope in nearly 100 Telugu doctors settled in UK, Spain, Italy and USA to coordinate in tele-medicine for the Covid-19 patients in Telangana. He said those doctors have experience of handling thousands of Coronavirus cases in those countries.
The Health Minister appreciated the offer and asked DME Dr. Ramesh Reddy, DoH Dr. Srinivasulu and OSD Dr. Gangadhar to improve upon the proposal by having a meeting with Naraayan Reddy and other colleagues.
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Narayana Reddy appreciated the timely response shown by the Health Minister and the senior officials.
Speaking to media persons earlier, Gudur had demanded the government to act fast on Plasma Therapy as it was giving better results in treatment of critically ill Covid-19 patients. He said that he knew the pain with which a Corona patient goes through and would like to serve the people who are affected by the virus. He said two persons, who have recovered from the Covid-19, could donate their Plasma to save one serious patient suffering from Coronavirus. He said many States have done commendable jobs in implementing the Plasma Therapy. While the Delhi Govt is establishing a Plasma Bank, Maharashtra Govt has launched the biggest Plasma trial titled ‘Project Platina’. He said some other States including Karnataka, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have been utilising Plasma Therapy in an effective manner to treat Covid-19 patients.
Narayana Reddy expressed regret that the Telangana Government was not only slow in ‘Tracing, Testing and Treating’ the Covid-19 patients, it failed to take up Plasma Therapy at a larger scale. He said Plasma Therapy was performed on a few patients only at Gandhi Hospital. He said this could be scaled up and all eligible hospitals could be permitted to perform this procedure. He said with over 60% recovery rate, it was not difficult to convince recovered patients to donate their plasma to save 2% critically ill patients. However, this could not be done unless the State Government frames SOPs.
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The TPDA President said that his association would launch a massive awareness campaign to convince a large number of recovered patients for plasma donations. He said his association was completely non-political and it would carry out its activities with its own funds. It does not need any donations or government funds for any activity, he said.
Narayana Reddy proposed that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) to handle Covid-19 situation. He said all other activities should be suspended till we conquer Covid–19. He said all ministers should be directed to stay put in one major hospital to supervise and coordinate the Covid-19 treatment. He said the ministers could take all precautions like wearing Hazmat Suits to protect themselves from the infection.
The other office bearers of the Association also narrated their experiences and appealed to the people to take all precautions to protect themselves from Coronavirus. (Hydnow)
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