As New Zealand celebrates its success in responding to coronavirus as a ‘team of 5 million’, another story of public mindedness that offers new hope in the global fight against COVID-19 is emerging in South Korea.

A South Korea-based religious group named Shincheonji Church of Jesus said that over 4,000 members of the church, who have recovered from COVID-19 are willing to donate plasma for developing a new treatment.

The amount of blood will be worth about $83 billion, if the 4,000 patients donate 500ml individually, according to the current transaction in the United States. “It is difficult to accelerate developing a medicine for COVID-19 with only 200 recovered patients who expressed their will to donate blood. The massive donation from the recovered patients from Shincheonji Church will solve the problem of the lack of blood for research,” said an official from Green Cross Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company in South Korea.

The plasma extracted from the blood will be used to research and develop convalescent plasma therapy, one of the most promising experimental treatments of the virus so far. Found in the blood of people who have recovered from Covid-19, convalescent plasma is known to help in decreasing the death rate of infected people in intensive care who are unresponsive to other treatments.

This donation of convalescent plasma from Korean Shincheonji church members is the valuable resource offered to those researching treatment presents a meaningful stepping stone on the road back to global recovery.

– by International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), New Zealand branch.

The IPYG is an affiliate group of HWPL (Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light) which was founded upon the content of the Declaration of World Peace proclaimed on May 25th, 2013.

As reported by Reuters on June 23, 2020

In a story dated June 23, 2020, “South Korea church hit by COVID-19 says members to give plasma for research”, the news agency Reuters noted, “In February and March, a massive outbreak among members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus made South Korea the scene of the first large outbreak outside of China. At least 5,213 of the country’s total 12,484 cases have been linked to the church outbreak, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).”

“The city of Daegu – where most of the church infections were centred – filed a civil lawsuit against the church on Monday, seeking 100 billion won ($82.75 million) in damages. Daegu authorities had previously filed a complaint against the church accusing it of not submitting a full list of members and facilities, and not cooperating with city health efforts,” Reuters added.

To these IPYG has this to say: “Some local governments in South Korea recently brought lawsuits against the church with allegations that the church did not cooperate with the authorities by not submitting the full list of church facilities and members.

“No evidence has been found that Shincheonji supplied missing or altered lists. And there were only minor differences,” said Kim Kang-lip, vice-minister of Health. Academic researches on Shincheonji and COVID-19 stated that the church “provided the list of its South Korean members six days after it was requested” and “it was initially unclear whether facilities and properties that were shut down should be included” when the government asked for the lists of real estate.

A Shincheonji media coordinator said the church will cooperate fully with investigations from government agencies.”