|
 The number of new South Korean cases was a sharp drop from 23 on
Monday, but the number of schools closed grew to 2,208, including 20
universities.
"At this stage, to issue a clear message is something the Hong Kong
government thinks is necessary," Hong Kong's number two official,
Carrie Lam, told reporters just before the travel warning was
posted.
A red alert, the second-highest outbound travel advisory on a
three-point scale, is defined as a "significant threat" according to
the Hong Kong government, and means people should "adjust travel
plans" and "avoid non-essential travel".
On Monday, Hong Kong upgraded its response to the outbreak in South
Korea to "serious".
Nam Kyung-pil, governor of Gyeonggi province, which surrounds the
South Korean capital, Seoul, said 32 of its large general hospitals
have joined the campaign to fight the outbreak by offering to take
in anyone who is showing MERS symptoms.
"We are fighting two wars; The war against the disease and the war
against fear," Nam said.
The head of the Korean Hospital Association, who accompanied the
country's deputy prime minister on a visit on Tuesday to a Daejeon
hospital where MERS patients were being treated, criticised the
government for poor communication.
"The hospitals that did not receive information on patients have
been wounded deeply," Park Sang-geun said during an open meeting.
It was only on Sunday that South Korean officials released the names
of all the health facilities where MERS victims had been treated or
visited, which now number 35.
TOURISTS CANCEL TRIPS
The World Health Organization (WHO) began work on a joint mission
with South Korean doctors and officials to review the country's
response and analyze the virus.
The WHO has not recommended any curb on travel, but thousands of
tourists have canceled plans to visit South Korea.
The Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong has canceled all tours to
South Korea that were scheduled to set off between now and June 30,
excluding cruises, with 10,000 to 12,000 travelers to be affected,
the city's public broadcaster reported.
South Korea's response has been aggressive and is getting better, a
WHO specialist, Peter Ben Embarek, said in Geneva, adding it should
still not be surprising if there were a few cases of infection
coming outside of hospitals.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has called for an all-out
national effort to eradicate the outbreak, which has been spreading
since a 68-year-old businessman brought it home from a Middle East
trip last month.
All subsequent infections in South Korea have occurred in healthcare
facilities and been traced to the original patient.
[to top of second column] |
South Korea has the second highest number of infections, after Saudi
Arabia, according to data from the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control.
The seventh reported MERS death in South Korea was a 68-year-old
woman who had an existing heart ailment and had been in the
emergency room of a Seoul hospital, where a number of previous
confirmed cases had been traced.
South Korea's central bank is now expected to cut interest rates on
Thursday in a preemptive move to dampen the economic impact of the
MERS outbreak, according to a Reuters poll of analysts released on
Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs downgraded the 2015 GDP growth forecast
for South Korea to 2.8 percent from a previous estimate of 3.3
percent. It said 0.2 percentage points of this reduction could be
ascribed to the MERS outbreak.
The Chinese territory of Macau required masks for people entering
local healthcare facilities as a precaution against MERS, and
advised residents to avoid travel to South Korea unless absolutely
necessary.
Singapore said it would start screening body temperatures of
passengers arriving from South Korea from late Tuesday.
Some 2,892 people who may have had contact with MERS patients have
been put under quarantine, some in hospitals but most at home.
Authorities are using mobile phones to track people who violate
quarantine.
South Korea's new cases bring the total of MERS cases globally to
1,244, based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least
446 related deaths.
(Additional reporting by Seungyun Oh and Christine Kim in SEOUL,
Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA, and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Writing by
Jack Kim; Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
