Since the beginning of the second wave of Covid-19, Dr Neil Pinto and Karina Thakrar, have had a frenzied schedule. As founders of the PINT Network, their job is to connect plasma donors directly to the patients through their online platform and the recent surge in cases means that their hands are full. 

“After we started in March last year, we received about 100 to 200 requests in June, but by December it had gone down to 20-30 requests as the number of cases had decreased. However, with the recent surge, we now have almost 200-300 requests for plasma a day and it is still not enough to match up to the patients, who are in the hospitals,” says Dr Pinto, whose network currently has over 5,000 patients and 300 donors. ”We’re able to help only 1 in every 20 patients. While we get around 200 requests a day, we get only 10-20 donor registrations a day.”