New Delhi: IAS officer Abhishek Singh has launched a new online portal to streamline the process of plasma donation, in light of the severe Covid wave that has hit the country.
The portal called ‘United by Blood’, launched a week ago, was founded with an aim to create a repository for plasma by establishing real-time and seamless contact between donors and recipients.
“The idea behind this initiative was to handle the information asymmetry. There are so many people who genuinely want to help, but are not able to connect with the recipients. The filtration of donors on a real-time basis and their location is the unique feature of this website, through which people can find plasma donors around their area,” 33-year-old Singh, who is the Deputy Commissioner in Delhi, told ThePrint.
He added: “We don’t display numbers, so people first connect with each other on the basis of their requirement and can further share contacts if it matches.”
The website allows visitors to register as a donor or a patient across the country, and helps them connect directly to their required source without the intervention of a third party. Donors have to share their contact information, location, blood group and they are filtered on the basis of location, blood group and date of recovery.
At present, there are about 500 donors and 700 patients that have registered on the portal.
Plasma is a component of the human blood that carries antibodies, and can be donated a month after recovering from Covid, and in gaps of 15 days.
However, many public health experts have called for the government to change its guidelines on plasma therapy since several studies, including the Recovery trial conducted by the University of Oxford, found no benefits of the use of plasma in Covid treatment.
Also read: Growing plasma, remdesivir use will help Covid virus mutate, become stronger: Ex-ICMR scientist
Initiative supported by various ventures
Even though ‘United by Blood’ is a personal initiative by Singh, he has a volunteer team of IIT and IIM graduates who are handling the website and filtration of donors.
These volunteers are a part of another initiative that was launched by the IAS officer — the online platform SIGMA or Students for Involved Governance and Mutual Action. Through this platform, he ties up with students from IITs, IIMs and others to make government policies more popular.
According to Singh, the plasma donations portal is also being supported by various entrepreneurial ventures.
‘Ease My Trip’, an online travel company, is offering a Rs 500 cash voucher to every person who is registering as a donor. He added that talks are underway with Uber, which will support every donor with free rides to go for donation.
Under the same initiative, the 2011-batch IAS officer is also planning to launch another project titled ‘Oxitaxi’ for oxygen cylinders. Under the project, a volunteer team will deliver 100 oxygen cylinders to people in need every day.
Singh is also a founder of ‘World of Wardi’, which was an attempt to bring citizens closer to the nation’s armed forces. Under this initiative, he collaborated with interior designer Sussanne Khan to revamp Mumbai’s Bandra Police Station last year.
The IAS officer, who is a singer and actor as well, made headlines last year after his screen debut in a music video for the viral song Dil Tod Ke by singer B. Praak. Singh will also play the role of an IAS officer in season 2 of the Emmy-winning Netflix series Delhi Crime.
Also read: Modi govt expects second Covid wave surge to come down ‘sharply’ by July