Published 10:50 IST, June 23rd 2020
Delhi duo design website to match COVID patients with plasma donors: Doondh.com
Amid soaring cases of Coronavirus in the country, two friends from Delhi have designed a website to match plasma donors with patients. It's called Doondh.com
Amid soaring cases of Coronavirus in the country, two friends from Delhi have designed a website to match plasma donors with patients. After having gone through a traumatic experience where he could not find a plasma donor for days his father-in-law, Adwitiya Mal and his childhood friend Mukul Pahwa decided to close in the disparity between critical patients and plasma donors. Investing over ₹2.27 lakh from their savings, they developed Doondh.com in about four days. The next website which went live on June 12 soon began to grab eyeballs.
Doondh.com works by matching patients and plasma donors. Both parties can register on the site. Currently, there are about 579 patients and about 150 donors registered on the site.
The Dhoondh founders have made it clear that they are not involved in the medical aspect of the process. Their job is to only connect prospective donors to patients who have been prescribed plasma therapy to battle COVID.
All information is gathered through consent and the founders, along, a few friends and volunteers connect the candidates manually. After a match is found based on the location and blood group, the founders call prospective donors, take consent for forwarding their details to a patient and bridge the gap between them.
What is Plasma Therapy?
Although the virus has no formulated cure, plasma therapy has been said to have yielded positive results in the recovery of the COVID-19 patients. The blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 develops antibodies to fight the virus. This therapy uses the antibodies from the blood of a cured patient to treat another critical patient.
However, experts have maintained that although plasma therapy has given good results, there is not much data available on it and no randomised control trials have been done with the therapy. Hence, it is not advisable to use the therapy as a regular treatment for the virus.
Updated 10:50 IST, June 23rd 2020