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 Five more cases were confirmed on Wednesday taking to 30 the number
infected in South Korea since the outbreak began there two weeks
ago. Two people have died, fuelling fear in the country with the
most cases outside the Middle East, where the disease first
appeared.
While there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, the
nightmare scenario is the virus changes and spreads rapidly, as
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) did in 2002-2003 killing
about 800 people around the world.
MERS was first identified in humans in 2012 and is caused by a
coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered SARS. But
MERS has a much higher death rate at 38 percent, according to World
Health Organization (WHO) figures.
The WHO puts the total number of MERS cases globally at 1,161, with
at least 436 related deaths, the vast majority in the Middle East.
There is no cure or vaccine.
"There are a lot people worried about the situation," Park told an
emergency meeting of ministers and top officials.
"Everything must be done to stop any further spread."
More than 200 schools were shut on Wednesday, most of them in the
province of Gyeonggi, around Seoul, where the first death occurred
on Monday.
South Korea has quarantined or isolated about 1,300 people for
possible MERS infection.
A spokesman of Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], South Korea's top
conglomerate, said an orientation conference for new staff scheduled
for this week has been postponed in accordance with government
instructions on public safety.
Media in the region has reported tourists cancelling visits to South
Korea.
Though the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions,
South Korean border control authorities have put a ban on overseas
travel for people isolated for possible infection, a health ministry
official said.
China last week reported its first MERS case, that of a South Korean
man who tested positive after breaking a voluntary house quarantine
and traveling to Hong Kong and on to mainland China.
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PRESSURE GROWING
South Korea reported its first two deaths from MERS on Tuesday.
Of the five new cases, four had been in the same hospital as the
first patient, a 68-year-old man who had just returned from a trip
to four countries in the Middle East. The other, a 60-year-old man,
caught it from another infected person.
Media said health authorities were conducting tests on an elderly
patient who died on Sunday after sharing the same hospital ward with
one of the two MERS-infected people who had died. Officials said it
was likely she died of existing illness.
The new cases would bring the total number globally to 1,166, based
on World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least 436 related
deaths.
Pressure is growing for the government to identify the hospitals
treating infected patients as fear and confusion mount.
Public health authorities have insisted it was "helpful" to keep the
names of the hospitals from the public, but in an opinion poll
published on Wednesday 83 percent of respondents demanded that the
government identify them.
Ian Jones, a specialist virologist at Britain’s University of
Reading who has followed MERS since it emerged, said transparency
would help in the effort to stop the outbreak.
"Being open about the cases, their locations and their condition, is
best for control - even if this causes some alarm in the short
term," he said.
Some experts have said the 38 percent death rate from MERS might be
overstated as patients with little or no symptoms might go
undetected. The death rate from SARS was 9 to 12 percent, rising to
more than 50 percent for patients over 65.
Symptoms of MERS can include cough, fever and shortness of breath.
It can lead to respiratory failure, the WHO said.
(Additional reporting by Sohee Kim and Se Young Lee in SEOUL;
Writing by Tony Munroe and Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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