Engage microbiologists, experts and medical researchers to explore more on stem cell therapy for curing Covid-19 patients with serious health ailments like kidney, pneumonia and diabetic issues, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the state health department.
While instructing the state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha (at the state secretariat) to look into the matter at the earliest, the Chief Minister said, “You all know experiments over Plasma Therapy are going on. In some cases it worked and in some cases it failed to yield any positive results. I think in this time of pandemic, we should also explore the possibility of cord blood therapy (stem cell) to save critical Covid-19 patients suffering from serious kidney, pneumonia and diabetes problems.”
“I think this is the time we should engage some researchers at our Cord blood bank to explore the possibility. I would like to tell the Chief Secretary to start working on the infrastructures required for this research at our Cord blood bank. I started this Cord blood bank in Kolkata five years ago but due to some legal issues there was some problem but now it’s an opportunity for the researchers to work on this field,” she said.
It was learnt that Mamata has asked researchers to take the initiative in this field to explore more on cell therapies to make ‘regenerative medicine’ (process of replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues to restore normal function) to save critical patients – especially in this time of Covid-19 pandemic.
Mamata’s decision to give more emphasis on stem cell therapy came months after Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Centre (ADSCC) has claimed to treat thousands of patients suffering from Covid-19 and announced that more than 50 per cent of the patients responded and recovered fully. The ADSCC has been treating COVID-19 patients with its patented and approved UAECell19 product. Recently, the ADSSC has signed a MoU, with Pluristem Therapeutics Inc of Israel to research more in this area.
In June 2015, Mamata inaugurated the country's first state government-owned stem cell preservation centre, and started its formal functioning at the School of Tropical Medicine in Kolkata.
The umbilical cord of newborns containing stem cells can be stored in the bank. The preserved stem cells can be used in the future for the treatment of an adult in case of congenital and genetic problems and will also help to check various complicated diseases which could not be cured by an ordinary treatment.
The cord blood bank functions as per the rules and guidelines of the Centre and the state government.
These stem cells have the potential to treat over 80 medical conditions, including blood disorders, immune diseases with research on going to bring about additional benefits of these cells.
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