Plasma therapy has successfully cured 18 Covid-19 patients in Chennai and one patient in Madurai. On a trial basis, the plasma therapy was carried out on 20 patients in Chennai of which 18 persons were cured and discharged from the Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital (RGGH), said Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

With the approval of ICMR, plasma therapy was also carried out at Madurai Government hospital where one patient was successfully cured, he said in a tweet.

In plasma therapy, the plasma is separated from the blood of a Covid-19 recovered patient and given to a Covid-19 positive patient.

A plasma bank will soon be set up at the RGGH at a cost of ₹2 crore. This will be India’s second plasma bank after the first at Delhi, he said.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu reported a further increase of 3,680 coronavirus positive cases in the State in the last 24 hours to take the total cases to 1,30,261. After 4,163 Covid-19 patients were discharged today, the number of active cases was 46,105.

The number of deaths due to the virus increased to 1,829 after 64 Covid-19 patients died today.

In Chennai, further 1,205 infections were reported to a total of 74,969. After 2,869 patients were discharged today ((total 55,156 discharged so far), the number of active cases was 18,616.

Recovery rate in Chennai has increased to 74 per cent from 71 per cent on Thursday and 50 per cent on June 11.

After Chennai, Chengalpattu reported the highest addition of cases with 242, followed by Thiruvallur (219); Thoothukudi (195); Madurai (192); Tirunelveli (145); Virudhunagar (143); Vellore (140); Salem (127); Trichy (109); Theni (108); Kanyakumari (105); Thiruvannamalai (103) and rest of the numbers split among other districts, including Kallakurichi (82) and Ramanathapuram (85).

After 37,309 samples were tested today, the number of samples tested so far has crossed the 15-lakh mark to 15.29 lakhs.

Meanwhile, the State government has further relaxed lockdown restrictions by allowing IT/ITeS companies to work with 50 per cent of employee strength at their work premises from July 13 in all areas except containment zones falling under the jurisdiction of Greater Chennai Police limits. This is subject to the condition that 90 per cent of the employees going to work place shall use company arranged transport facilities.

However, companies should encourage their employees to work from home, says an order by Chief Secretary K Shanmugam.

On Thursday, the State government allowed IT companies to operate with 10 per cent employees at work places provided the management organised transport arrangements for their employees.