The number of people infected with the MERS virus in South Korea has increased to 30, and more than 750 people have been quarantined, the country’s authorities said on Wednesday. More than 200 schools have been temporarily shut down due to concerns that the virus could spread.
As stated by the Kyodo agency, people in quarantine are kept in their homes or hospitals.
Among the five new cases of MERS infection is a person who has contact with the patient, who has in turn contacted a 68-year-old man – the first MERS patient in South Korea.
The 68-year-old was diagnosed on May 20, two weeks after his arrival from the Middle East. The man spent two days in Saudi Arabia, where MERS was first identified in September 2012.
The vast majority of subsequent cases in South Korea. it was linked to the first patient – either the medical staff or the patients and their family members who were in the hospital with him before he was finally diagnosed and isolated. The first two fatalities were also treated in the same hospital as the first patient.
In terms of the number of cases of MERS, South Korea. is the third country after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Authorities in Seoul were criticized for incorrectly assessing the risk and allowing the virus to spread when symptoms were initially overlooked in the first patient.
MERS is similar to the virus that causes acute respiratory distress syndrome, SARS, which killed around 2003 people worldwide in 800. May cause cough, fever and pneumonia. Unlike SARS, it can also lead to kidney failure.
According to the World Health Organization, 38 percent. those infected with the MERS virus die; there is no vaccine. According to data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), there have been 2012 cases of MERS infection worldwide since 1, including 172 fatalities, more than 479 in Saudi Arabia alone.