Jamaat attendees want to donate plasma
CHENNAI: “As soon as I got discharged, I met the district administration officials and the hospital dean and told them they may contact me anytime if they needed me to donate plasma,” said Muhammad Abbas, a 38-year-old businessman from Tirupur. Abbas was discharged from the ESI hospital in Coimbatore on Sunday. He, like several others, had tested positive for the virus after returning from the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi.
A group of recovered people who returned from the gathering have expressed interest in donating their plasma for the ongoing plasma therapy clinical trial in Tamil Nadu. Apart from their wish to help critically ill patients, the main reason behind it, they said, was to counter ‘baseless accusations’ hurled against them.
Muhammed Usman Ali from Theni said, “If the government needs us, we will all be there to donate plasma. More than the virus, what affected me was the mental stress. Muslims all over the State are facing this.”
Although he was not among the ones who went for the gathering, Sulthan, an electrical engineer from Chennai, coordinated in involving all Delhi returnees from across the State for this initiative. He said, “Ever since it emerged that many among the returnees tested positive, a few sections have taken it upon themselves to instigate hatred towards Muslims.”
Mohammed Abdul Ali, the Nawab of Arcot said the fact that many have voluntarily come forward to donate shows that they never intended to deliberately spread the virus. “The entire religion cannot be blamed for the pandemic; this is the work of certain mischief-mongers,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Nawab also appealed to fellow Muslims to refrain from going to mosques for special prayers throughout the month of Ramadan, even if the lockdown is lifted. “God forbid, if the virus appears again, it will be called the Ramadan virus,” he added.
What is Plasma Therapy?
It is the process of collecting plasma from those fully recovered from COVID-19, and using it to help patients currently under treatment.