Mumbai: Bollywood actor Zoa Morani, who beat coronavirus after being diagnosed last month, has donated plasma twice at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital to aid the recovery of other Covid-19 patients.
Morani, the daughter of former 2G scam accused Bollywood producer Karim Morani (he was acquitted in 2017), said on both occasions she’d been contacted by doctors at the hospital when they were in dire need of plasma donors for critical Covid-19 patients.
Although she doesn’t know the identity of the patients, she feels grateful that she got the chance to help.
“My blood group is AB+, which makes me a universal donor. A few days ago, I received a call from Dr Shastri of Nair Hospital, she asked me to donate blood because a Covid patient was critical and in ICU.”
Plasma of patients who have recovered from Covid-19 is believed to contain antibodies that can help cure critical patients. Plasma donation is similar to blood donation. During plasma donation, blood is drawn from a donor’s vein but pumped back in after the plasma is separated. Plasma therapy has emerged as a promising line of treatment for critical Covid-19 patients.
Morani and her sister’s blood was tested for compatibility right after they recovered from the infection.
She first donated plasma on 9 May and then on 26 May.
In a tweet 26 May, Morani wrote that her first round of donation had helped a patient get out of ICU.
Plasma donation round 2 ! Last time it helped get a patient out of ICU , Note from my Doctor “hoping all recovered covid patients come out and donate their blood , u may be able to help someone” #NairHospital #IndiaFightsCorona #plasmatherapy pic.twitter.com/GDoJ1n25te
— Zoa Morani (@zoamorani) May 26, 2020
Her initiative has gained much praise from Twitterati.
“When you do something with absolutely zero effort and get so much appreciation for it, it becomes all the more overwhelming,” she said.
Also Read: Plasma therapy on Delhi Covid-19 patients yields positive results, say Kejriwal & top doctor
Tested positive
Zoa Morani, 32, made her Bollywood debut in 2011 with the Shah Rukh Khan production Always Kabhi Kabhi.
Morani, along with her sister Shaza Morani and father Karim Morani, had tested positive for Covid-19 in the first week of April. The actor suspects she caught the infection while travelling from Jaipur to Mumbai. Talking about her symptoms and the progression of the infection, she said, “One day after I came back from Jaipur, my sister started having spells of headache and severe bodyache. Then, I developed symptoms as well.”
What started as a mild cough and fever, she added, escalated very quickly to breathlessness and loss of smell. “Everyday a new symptom would show up. When I started feeling like my chest was constricting, I decided that I had to get myself tested,” she said.
Mumbai has so far had 65,168 confirmed cases of coronavirus and over 2,000 deaths. Nair Hospital is one of five hospitals in the city that is accepting plasma from recovered Covid patients.
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