Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- In an experimental method, a major South Korean hospital has used blood plasma to treat critical patients infected with a novel coronavirus as doctors have yet to find preventive vaccines and medicine for the deadly virus that sparked a global pandemic.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), a state health watchdog, said Wednesday that it would work out guidelines on the safe use of plasma after Yonsei University's Severance Hospital Blood injected the plasma of fully-treated patients into three critically ill patients.

Plasma is used to treat a wide variety of medical disorders. Because the effectiveness of blood plasma treatment is not yet well-founded, it is mainly used to treat new infectious diseases, which do not have any clear cure. Studies in China found that plasma was able to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

"There aren't that many cases yet, so I think it's still an empirical treatment, and it needs to be more grounded," KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a regular press briefing on Wednesday, suggesting experts should be involved in research.