DAEGU, South Korea, June 27, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- 4,000 Shincheonji Church members who fully recovered from the coronavirus outbreak last February are now voluntarily donating their plasma toward convalescent plasma therapy, which has shown efficacy in lowering mortality rates for patients fighting COVID-19. This unprecedented scale of plasma donors from one region is in hope of aiding global efforts to quickly combat the devastating pandemic.
At a time when plasma donations to the Korean Green Cross have been low, Shincheonji Church's contribution is invaluable. "It is difficult to accelerate developing a COVID-19 vaccine with only 200 recovered patients willing to donate blood. The massive donation from the recovered patients in the Shincheonji Church will solve the problem of the lack of blood for research," said an official from the Korean Green Cross.
With prices of plasma from biotech companies around the world ranging from $350 to $40,000 dollars per milliliter, this sets Shincheonji's donation at a value of about $83 billion US dollars.
"This donation is what we want to contribute as a sincere thank you to the government's medical system and staff who worked hard to help our church members recover," said Shincheonji media coordinator Kim Young-eun. "We hope this will accelerate the development of coronavirus therapies and lead to more lives that can be saved."
The call to donate plasma was encouraged by Shincheonji Chairman Lee Man-hee, who asked for the cooperation of the congregation in any effort to resolve the pandemic in South Korea and abroad.
"I promised to cooperate for the benefit of humanity and the government's policy and conferred with our church members so that the estimated 4,000 congregants who recovered from COVID-19 can provide their plasma to develop a good medicine to solve this infectious disease," said Lee.
Efforts to donate plasma began in early May with records of correspondences with blood donation facilities and local health organizations. Currently, the National Institute of Health and Korean Green Cross have been in communication with the church to plan details.
SOURCE Shinchoenji
These press releases may also interest you
|