ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis with Covid-19 are risking their lives and navigating a shady black market to get blood plasma transfusions, despite scant medical proof about the remedy's effectiveness.
Convalescent plasma treatment, where the antibody-rich part of the blood from a recovered patient is transfused to a coronavirus sufferer, is growing in popularity across country amid widely circulating claims of success on social media. Like some other nations, Pakistan is conducting medical trials on the treatment, which has shown promising signs but is far from proven.
But with lengthy wait times and uncertain access, people are turning to the black market and private clinics, where there are no guarantees about the safety or origin of the blood product. "It's all born out of desperation because everyone wants to believe there is an answer to this (coronavirus) question," Fareeha Irfan, a public health specialist, told AFP. "It is easy to exploit the people who are not very well versed in what's going on in the scientific world. It is very easy to coerce them."
Pakistan has declared about 260,000 cases of coronavirus and some 5,500 deaths. With low testing rates, the true figure is thought to be considerably higher.
The Pakistan Society of Haematology said plasma hype had led the public - and even some health professionals - to believe the therapy was standard treatment for the virus.
"Use of convalescent plasma can sometimes lead to life-threatening transfusion reactions and transmissions of infections," the society said.
Nawaz Murad, a lecturer from Lahore, said doctors advised him to organise plasma therapy as a last-ditch attempt to save his father, rapidly deteriorating from COVID-19.
Frantic, he turned to Facebook, where he found a donor within hours.
To complete the treatment quickly, the family did not get the blood screened, leaving open the risk of infections such as hepatitis or HIV.
"Of course it was worth the risk, there was no other option but to get the transfusion done as soon as possible," Murad told AFP.
"It was not a normal situation, my family were under immense stress."
The donor provided his plasma for free, but Murad paid the equivalent of about $100 to a doctor to provide the transfusion at home. Some private clinics are reportedly charging up to $300 in the impoverished country.
World
Trump issues pandemic warning as second wave hits Australia
AFP
WASHINGTON: The coronavirus death toll in the United States has spiked again with President Donald Trump conceding the pandemic crisis is likely to get worse, as governments across Asia and Europe battled second waves of infections.
Australia set a new daily high of 500 cases on Wednesday, likewise Hong Kong broke its record, and infections were also on the rise in Tokyo and Belgium - all four had managed to dampen down infection rates months ago.
Belgian officials urged people to take precautions to halt a "snowball effect before it provokes a new avalanche" of a virus that has now killed 615,000 people globally from almost 15 million infections.
Almost a quarter of those deaths have been in the US, the worst-hit nation after a haphazard response dominated by Trump's repeated attempts to play down the severity of the crisis.
Almost 1,000 deaths confirmed on Tuesday, the highest daily nationwide death toll in weeks, Trump adopted a newly serious tone. "It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," the president told reporters, although he did repeat his assertion that the disease would somehow eventually "disappear".
The crisis has left tens of millions unemployed around the world and crippled global commerce, prompting the European Union to agree an unprecedented 750 billion euro ($858 billion) aid package for the hardest-hit member countries earlier this week.
But the airline industry continues to struggle under the weight of travel restrictions and reluctance among potential passengers to fly.
Irish carrier Ryanair said on Wednesday it would shut its base near the German business hub Frankfurt after pilots refused to take a pay cut.
With the sporting world just about getting back on its feet, Olympic officials conceded on Wednesday that their hopes of holding the Tokyo 2020 Games next year rested on a vaccine being developed.
"If things continue as they are now, we couldn't" hold the Games, said local organising committee president Yoshiro Mori.
While global efforts to prevent new infections are the principal concern of policymakers, the extent and severity of the disease among poorer communities was becoming clearer.
India past the one-million infections milestone last week, but new data on Wednesday suggested a vast underestimate.
An Indian study showed almost a quarter of the population in New Delhi had contracted the virus, equating to roughly five million infections in the capital city.
Officials have registered just 125,000 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, for those who recover from the disease, the path back to full health is not always straightforward.
In Brazil, 63-year-old Elenice da Silva had a severe infection that lasted nearly three months.