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 The 68-year-old man was in Bahrain from April 18 through to May 3
and was engaged in farming-related business, South Korea's health
ministry said in a statement. He returned to South Korea on May 4
through Qatar, it said.
The patient's wife who nursed him also has a minor respiratory
symptom and the results of tests on her would be available on
Thursday, Kim Young-taek, a director at the Korea Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters by telephone.
"There is no possibility of the disease spreading to ordinary people
although it is possible to have additional cases among those who
contacted the patient and have been isolated," Kim said.
First identified in humans in 2012, MERS is caused by a coronavirus,
from the same family as the one that caused a deadly outbreak of
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China in 2003. There is
no cure or vaccine.
The World Health Organization has had reports of 1,118 cases,
including 423 deaths. There is usually a surge of cases in the
northern spring and most cases have come from hospital transmission.
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(Reporting by Meeyoung Cho; Editing by Tony Munroe)
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