Head of the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD) Karachi, Dr. Tahir Shamsi, has passed away in Karachi.
He was admitted to the Aga Khan University (AKU) Hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage last week. He was in a critical condition and was being treated in the ICU.
Dr. Tahir had introduced the bone-marrow transplant in Pakistan in 1996. He had successfully performed more than 650 bone-marrow transplants. He also had over 100 research articles to his name.
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Pakistan last year, he had also suggested the federal and provincial governments employ the passive immunization technique for the treatment of critically ill Coronavirus patients in the absence of effective vaccines.
Commonly known as ‘plasma therapy’, the passive immunization technique was first introduced in 1890 and is only employed when the risk of infection is extremely high, the body’s immune response is low, and no vaccine is available.
Dr. Tahir was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of COVID-19 patients in Pakistan when vaccines were non-existent.
A study published in September last year revealed that 92% of critically ill patients were saved from being shifted to ventilators between March and September 2020 thanks to the passive immunization technique advocated by Dr. Tahir.