(Reuters) — South Korean Minister of Health and Welfare Moon Hyung-pyo on Friday (June 26) held a meeting with overseas medical experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and from the World Health Organisation (WHO) amid a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak.
Five key experts attended the meeting in Sejong, 145 kilometres (90 miles) south of Seoul, where the headquarters of the MERS task force team at the Ministry of Health and Welfare is based.
They included U.S. CDC Director of Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Stephen Redd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Holly Wong, WHO Director of Pandemic & Epidemic Diseases Department, Sylvie Briand, Team Leader of WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, Park Ki-dong, and Director of Public Health England, Brian McCloskey, the health ministry said.
Moon and experts were expected to share information about MERS and discuss preventive measures against the epidemic disease during the meeting, the ministry added.
Two more patients with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus have died, the health ministry said on Friday bringing the total fatality to 31.
The ministry also reported one new case, bringing the total of infected people to 181 in the outbreak that is the largest outside Saudi Arabia.
The new fatality had pre-existing health problems, according to the health ministry. Most of the deaths so far have been elderly patients or those who had existing illnesses.