Blood thinners help save lives of COVID-19 patients in Pune: Report

The blood-thinning drugs that are administered in the form of subcutaneous injection have helped reduce hospitalisation period of coronavirus patients and cut down COVID-19 mortality by as much as 90 percent.

Moneycontrol News

August 30, 2020 / 06:03 PM IST

A blood thinner commonly available in the market has reportedly helped heal coronavirus patients in Pune, Maharashtra.

Injections of Low Molecular Weight Heparin (LMWH) have turned out to be an effective therapeutic treatment for COVID-19.

According to a Times of India report, doctors have claimed that the subcutaneous injection has helped reduce hospitalisation period of coronavirus patients and cut down mortality by as much as 90 percent. Blood-thinning drugs have also improved the recovery rate among COVID-19 patients.

Encouraged by the results, doctors across India have now started administering LMWH injections as a prophylactic therapy to stop blood clotting and inflammation – the two major complications that have contributed to COVID-19 deaths.

How do the blood thinners work?

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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