Korean
MERS outbreak a wake-up call for increasingly mobile
world: WHO
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[June 17, 2015] By
Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland
GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - An outbreak of
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea shows how easily
diseases can spread in a connected world, but is not serious enough to
warrant travel bans or other global measures, the World Health
Organization said on Wednesday.
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Members of the U.N. body's emergency committee agreed unanimously
that the outbreak, while worrying, did not qualify as a public
health emergency of international concern - a rating that would have
triggered a coordinated, worldwide response.
"This outbreak is a wake-up call," the Geneva-based agency said. "In
a highly mobile world, all countries should always be prepared for
the unanticipated possibility of outbreaks of this, and other
serious infectious diseases."
It added, however, that there was no current evidence of the disease
spreading easily within communities, and there was no need for any
international travel or trade restrictions to be put in place to
contain its spread.
The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, which causes
coughing, fever and can lead to fatal pneumonia and kidney failure,
has been reported mainly in Saudi Arabia and South Korea, but has
also been imported in travelers to at least 25 countries worldwide.
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MERS kills about 38 percent of those it infects and is caused by a
coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered China's
deadly 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
The vast majority of MERS infections and deaths have been in Saudi
Arabia, where more than 1,000 people have been infected since 2012,
and about 454 have died.
Some 162 people in South Korea have been infected in a MERS outbreak
there in the past month -- the largest outside Saudi Arabia. It has
been traced to a 68-year-old South Korean man who returned from a
business trip to the Middle East in early May.
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"One of the things about this (South Korean) outbreak is that it has
received a lot of attention and has raised anxiety levels
internationally," the WHO's assistant director general for health
security, Keiji Fukuda, told reporters at a briefing.
He said the situation highlights the need to strengthen
collaboration between health and other key sectors, such as
aviation, and to enhance communication processes.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nevehay in Geneva and Kate Kelland in
London; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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