Mangaluru City North MLA Dr Y Bharath Shetty donates plasma to mark PM Modi's birthday

MANGALURU: On a day BJP workers organised blood donation camp to mark the 70th birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

Mangaluru City North

MLA Y Bharath Shetty went a step ahead. Dr Shetty, who was the first MLA in the state to contract the virus, donated

plasma

to become first Covid19 infected MLA from this part of the state to do so.

Dr H D Ranganath

, Kunigal MLA from Congress donated plasma with his brother on August 20.

The plasma donation comes at a time when BJP is in the midst of ‘Seva saptaha’ that the national and state units of the party are organising from September 14 to mark the birthday of PM Modi. Dr Shetty told TOI that he had his blood tested at a private medical college lab in the city on Wednesday and the doctors had cleared him to donate plasma. “The benefits of plasma therapy to people suffering from Covid19 are hard to ignore,” he said.

The process that lasted around 45-minutes at Justice K S Hegde Charitable Hospital, Deralakatte here will help treat two Covid19 patients. Plasma is separated from the red blood corpuscles (RBC) and RBCs is returned to the donor. Acknowledging the lead taken by Dr Ranganath in this regard, Dr Shetty said plasma donation by doctors who are also elected representatives will motivate others who have recovered from Covid19 to do so.

The convalescent plasma therapy is a process that uses antibodies from blood of a recovered Covid-19 patient to treat those affected by the coronavirus. Dr Bharath Shetty said he will volunteer to donate plasma again after 15-days if needed, subject to approval from doctors based on the antibody count then. Hitherto, plasma donors had to go to Bengaluru to donate plasma, which they can now do so at the blood bank of the hospital, he added.

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