South Korea battles MERS through plasma therapy

MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome, which has taken South Korea in its grip, is showing no signs of slowing down. The virus has accounted for more than 150 confirmed kills since the time it first started spreading in south Korea. Finding a cure for the virus gets a little tricky as it does not respond to medicines or vaccines. However in a bid to find the cute South Korea has resorted to the previously proven theory of blood transfusions from survivors.

The South Korean hospitals have already commenced human plasma treatment trials on this and as a part of the program two patients have s received blood from two other fully recovered MERS patients. Reports have confirmed that the outbreak of MERS in South Korea originated from a 68-year-old man who had traveled to the Middle East and since then the health ministry has been ineffective in stopping the outbreak further.

Officials disinfect a cafeteria of a school in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Sunday. (Yonhap)

The plasma treatment therapy it’s not something new and has been previously used in cases of SARS patients and it helped to reduce the death percentage by about 23 percent in South Korea. The ministry’s head of public health policy, Kwon Jun-Wook, said in a media briefing that there is insufficient clinical basis about the result of plasma treatment among experts in the country, but added: “The ministry has deep confidence in the medical staff on the direction of the treatment.”
Despite all the studies there is still no cure or vaccine for MERS. It is caused by a corona virus which belongs to the same family as the one that was responsible for China’s 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which lead to loss of many lives. However, MERS is primarily considered to be active in the Middle East. A number of deaths and infected cases have been recorded till now.

Seeing the condition worsen in South Korea, the WHO has stepped up and called in an emergency meeting to discuss the solutions for the situation. The number of cases occurring every day is decreasing and the government is gaining a little bit of control back. In order to prevent further outbreak preventive measures are being taken as many schools are about to reopen. A total of 84 hospitals are working hard to treat the patients and prevent any further expansion of the virus for which all help is being given to them by the government.