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 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome has infected 126 people in South
Korea and killed 11 since it was first diagnosed just over three
weeks ago in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the
Middle East.
The outbreak is the largest outside Saudi Arabia, where the disease
was first identified in humans in 2012, and has stirred fears in
Asia of a repeat of a 2002-03 scare when Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) killed about 800 people worldwide.
The 68-year-old man who brought the virus back from the Middle East
visited several health centers for treatment of a nagging cough and
fever before he was diagnosed, leaving a trail of infection in his
wake.
The danger of the virus in hospitals had led to two being sealed off
with at least 133 people - patients and staff - inside. They would
be sealed for at least the next 11 days, given the incubation period
of the virus, officials said.
"No patients can get out of their rooms," said a city government
official in the capital, Seoul, where one of the hospitals is
located, declining to be identified.
"Nurses in protective gear are giving them food. No one can get in
from outside." All but one of South Korea's cases have been confirmed as
originating with the businessman, who was diagnosed with MERS on May
20, and occurring in health-care centers, and the last one is likely
to be confirmed as such too, the health ministry said.
WORST OVER?
MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that
caused SARS. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as
easily, at least for now. There is no cure or vaccine.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts are in South Korea working
with the government and Saudi Arabian health officials are meeting
authorities on Friday.
The four new cases reported on Friday marked the lowest daily
increase in 11 days, raising hope the worst might be over.
"The signs are beginning to look promising," Stephen Morse, a
professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in
New York, told Reuters. "I’m hopeful it’s beginning to decline, but
there are still patients."
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The number of people in quarantine, either at home or in medical
facilities, also declined for the first time, by 125 to 3,680, the
ministry said.
The incubation period for many people exposed to infected patients
is ending, which should mean a decline in new cases, said Jacob Lee,
an infectious disease expert at Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital in
Seoul.
"There may be a third wave from hospitals that MERS patients had
stayed at but it won't spread as much as it has," Lee said.
The central bank cut interest rates on Thursday in the hope of
softening the blow to an economy already beset by slack demand and
plunging visitor arrivals.
Alarm has spread throughout the region even though only one case has
been reported outside South Korea in this outbreak, that of a South
Korean man who traveled to China via Hong Kong after defying a
suggestion from health authorities that he stay in voluntary
quarantine at home.
U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned President Park Geun-hye, who
has postponed a visit to Washington to manage the outbreak, to say
he was prepared to lend all support to help fight the disease, her
office said.
South Korea's new cases bring the total number of MERS cases
globally to 1,275, based on WHO data, with at least 450 related
deaths.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
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