Abstract

Background: COVID-19 was caused by a virus (SARS-COV-2). On January 30, 2020, the WHO designated the COVID-19 outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and on March 11, 2020, the organization designated the illness as a pandemic. Various medications were tried including Convalescent plasma (CP).CP trials, were initiated based on the principle of viral neutralization and passive immunotherapy. Therefore, it was hypothesized that CP obtained from the blood of recovered patients of COVID-19 may contain immunoglobulins that could neutralize SARS-CoV-2 and thereby improve the course of disease in COVID-19 infection patients. This led to established protocols at various blood centres worldwide to collect plasma from earlier COVID-19 infected patients who had made a full recovery. But little emphasis was paid to the challenges in collecting CP from donors, particularly in Punjab, India, even though numerous studies have focused on the effectiveness of CP as a treatment for COVID-19. The pandemic’s scope led to the assumption that there would be many donors. In real practice, it was difficult to find and choose COVID-19 CP donors who were willing to give and were qualified, fulfilled the inclusion criteria, and had appropriate antibody titers. The current study was undertaken to analyze the challenges and difficulties encountered in collection of plasma from COVID-19 recovered patients in a tertiary care hospital in Northwest Punjab.

Aim: To analyse the challenges and difficulties encountered in collection of convalescent plasma.

Materials and Methods: A prospective cross-sectional survey-based study was done in the COVID-19 recovered blood donors who visited for convalescent plasma (CP) donation at our tertiary care teaching hospital of Punjab. The study was conducted for a period of one year from 01 May 2020 to 30 April 2021.

Results: A total 1050 COVID-19 recovered patients were screened. Out of which 690 were rejected and only 360 patients were recruited for the study. The individuals who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were telephonically contacted and explained the details of the procedure and the benefits of the procedure. They were motivated to come for further tests and they were provided transport for the same. Once they were found to be fit, they were further requested to undergo plasma donation. Out of 360, 182 (50.56%) could not be contacted telephonically and 178(49.44% were contacted telephonically. Out of 178,84(23.33% of total recruited) refused to donate plasma on telephone only, 62(17.22%of total recruited) agreed for Plasma Donation. Rest (32,08.89%) was deferred due to various reasons. Out of 62 only 58 came to the blood Centre. But only 26 donated plasmas. Rest of the patients did not donate plasma due to fear of donation.

Out of 360, 182 (50.56%) could not be contacted telephonically and 178(49.44% were contacted telephonically. Out of 178,84(23.33% of total recruited) refused to donate plasma on telephone only, 62(17.22%of total recruited) agreed for Plasma Donation. Rest (32,08.89%) was deferred due to various reasons. Out of 62 only 58 came to the blood Centre. But only 26 donated plasmas. Rest of the patients did not donate plasma due to fear of donation. Out of 26 patients,22 were males and 4 were females, of which 24 donated plasmas for first time.

Conclusion: Blood donation is inherently an altruistic act and in normal times, donors are healthy individuals who volunteer to donate. In a global on-going pandemic, the “Fear Factor of contracting the disease” acted as a major challenge to motivate and convince a COVID recovered patient for plasma donation. But, with the help of targeted publicity and motivation on the benefits of plasma donation which can save two precious lives with a single donation, we could have increased the plasma donation drive. But the challenge was to motivate, convince, and educate the potential donors and society about the likely benefits of COVID convalescent plasma.

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