South Korea’s Health Ministry reported on Sunday (June 14) seven new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), taking the total to 145 in an outbreak that the World Health Organization called “large and complex.”
“As of now, there are 7 new confirmed MERS cases on June 14, leading to the total of 145 patients. 10 patients were discharged from hospital up to now. And as assistant minister Kwon mentioned, one more patient will leave the hospital this morning,” a South Korean disease control center official, Jeong Eun-kyeong, said at a news briefing.
All of the cases are believed to be linked to hospital settings and traced to a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East. There have been 14 deaths, all elderly patients or people who had been suffering serious ailments.
A Bratislava hospital said on Saturday (June 13) it is testing a 38-year-old South Korean man for MERS.
Slovakia media reported the man was transported from the city of Zilina, 200 km north of the Slovak capital. The area is home to a Kia Motors factory and media said the man worked for a subcontractor of the South Korean carmaker and that he was staying in a hotel in Zilina.
The South Korean health ministry said it will look into the situation.
“We knew about the situation (of a South Korean man had test for MERS in Slovakia). We are trying to figure it out. There are key organizations like World Health Organization in each country. We will exchange information with those organizations, and look into the situation,” Jeong said.
The Samsung Medical Centre, a prominent hospital in the capital Seoul, suspended most of its services on Sunday after being identified as the epicentre of the spread of MERS.
The Samsung hospital said it was suspending all non-emergency surgery and would take no new patients to focus on stopping MERS after more than 70 cases were traced to it.
The WHO said on Saturday it saw no sign the disease was spreading in the community and there was also no indication the virus in South Korea was mutating into one more easily passed between people.
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 2002-2003 scare when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed about 800 people worldwide.
MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS. There is no cure or vaccine.
REUTERS