Russia’s regions battle coronavirus their own way

A donor centre in Bashkiria on Thursday began collection of plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient in order to treat seriously ill patients.

Bashkiria became the first region in Russia to use transfusions in COVID-19 patients, but the century-old treatment has helped fight other diseases in the past including the 1918 flu pandemic.

Researchers are still working on the efficiency of the therapy.

The donor centre in the region's capital Ufa hopes to accumulate more placks plasma with immune system antibodies soon.

As the number of positive cases continues to grow in Russia, regions are working to create more hospital bed capacity.

While some divisions built new facilities from scratch, most of them are transforming existing infrastructure into field hospitals.

On Wednesday, Russian authorities decided to reopen all industrial plants and construction sites in the capital starting next week, but people are still asked to stay at home and respect quarantine enforced in most of Russia's 85 regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced earlier this week that each region should decide the lockdown measures.

Russian health officials reported more than 11,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday — a new record daily spike for the country which brought the total over 177,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.