JUNE 11 (Reuters) — South Korea’s health ministry on Thursday (June 11) reported 14 new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), taking the total to 122 in an outbreak that is the largest outside Saudi Arabia.
“Fourteen more cases were confirmed yesterday. As of now, there are a total of 122 MERS cases,” a South Korean assistant minister of health care policy, Kwon Deok-cheol said at a regular news briefing.
Among the newly reported cases was a pregnant woman who contracted the virus at the emergency ward of a Seoul hospital that has been linked to a number of other confirmed cases, the ministry said.
“Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a pregnant woman, who was exposed to the virus in the emergency ward of the Samsung Medical Centre, tested positive for MERS. She is in a stable condition,” Kwon said.
The woman’s pregnancy would limit the scope of treatment available, but she was in stable condition, the ministry said. The woman’s parents had previously tested positive for MERS.
The spread of the disease has stirred up public fear and confusion, prompting President Park Geun-hye to postpone a visit to the United States, while health officials have been criticised over a lack of transparency and for failing to swiftly contain the spread.
A joint South Korean-World Health Organization mission on Wednesday (June 10) recommended that schools be reopened as they were unlikely to spread the disease, just as school boards recommended more be shut.
First identified in humans in 2012, MERS 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). There is no cure or vaccine.
South Korea’s new cases bring the total number of MERS cases globally to 1,271 based on WHO data, with at least 448 related deaths. The country has the second highest number of cases after Saudi Arabia, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
