SOUTH KOREA — Two South Korean hospitals are conducting experimental blood plasma treatments on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) patients, Reuters reports. The treatment involves injecting patients suffering from MERS with blood plasma from recovering patients, the health ministry said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, four new cases of the infection have been reported. The procedure has been conducted on two consenting MERS patients in addition to existing care, the ministry's head of public health policy, Kwon Jun-wook, told a media briefing. "There is insufficient clinical basis about the result of plasma treatment among experts in the country," Kwon said. "The ministry has deep confidence in the medical staff on the direction of the treatment." According to Kwon, plasma treatment has been used in SARS patients with some positive results in seriously ill patients, which led to a decrease in the death rate by up to 23 percent. Plasma therapy has not been widely tried for MERS patients, and there is little clinical study results reported, Reuters reports Eom Joong-sik, professor of infectious diseases at Hallym University's medical college, as stating. Currently, there is no cure or vaccine against the MERS virus, which first emerged in humans three years ago. ----------------------------------------­--------------------- Welcome to TomoNews, where we animate the most entertaining news on the internets. Come here for an animated look at viral headlines, US news, celebrity gossip, salacious scandals, dumb criminals and much more! Subscribe now for daily news animations that will knock your socks off. Visit our official website for all the latest, uncensored videos: http://us.tomonews.net Check out our Android app: http://bit.ly/1rddhCj Check out our iOS app: http://bit.ly/1gO3z1f Stay connected with us here: Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TomoNewsUS Twitter @tomonewsus http://www.twitter.com/TomoNewsUS Google+ http://plus.google.com/+TomoNewsUS/ Instagram @tomonewsus http://instagram.com/tomonewsus

• published: 17 Jun 2015
• views: 1654