The Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Department authorities on Thursday confirmed that the first COVID-19 patient to undergo convalescent plasma (CP) therapy in the state has succumbed to his comorbidities.

“He was having multiple comorbidities and was in a very critical condition. He couldn’t be saved,” Karnataka Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Jawaid Akhtar told TNM.

The 60-year-old man admitted in Bengaluru’s Victoria Hospital suffered a cardiac arrest and had complex medical conditions such as pneumonia, hypertension, diabetes.

With another death being reported from Dakshina Kannada where a 60-year-old woman succumbed to her comorbidities, the death toll in the state rose to 35. She hailed from Anantapur in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

However, health department officials do not want to call it as a failure of the plasma therapy experiment.

As reported earlier, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has given permission to the Karnataka government to begin clinical trials for the use of plasma therapy on April 22. Officials had said that this would be done only for patients with high-risk comorbidities.

Following that, health officials had said that it will be first used in Victoria Hospital in consultation with Bengaluru-based HCG Hospital.

HCG had incidentally got a grant from Directorate General of Healthcare Services (DGHS), Government of India, to begin the clinical trials for the experimental treatment.

In an interview with TNM, HCG's Associate Dean, Vishal Rao had said that through this experimental treatment, doctors will attempt to transfer a healthy person’s immunity with the help of transferred plasma to the critically ill patients.

This form of treatment which is still at an experimental stage, involves injecting plasma of patients who have recovered from the disease to those who are still infected. This had earlier been used to treat patients suffering from Ebola and Spanish flu globally.