South Korea MERS Cases Rise as Hong Kong Increases Alert Level
The number of South Koreans infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome increased to 87 on Monday after the government identified additional cases. It also said that an 80-year-old man had died, bringing the number of deaths linked to the virus in South Korea to six.
The spread of the virus in South Korea, which in a matter of days has become the worst-afflicted country besides Saudi Arabia, has caused concern throughout Asia. The health authorities in Hong Kong raised their three-stage response level on Monday from “alert” to “serious,” which means ports of entry will exert tighter arrival controls. The Hong Kong Center for Health Protection posted an advisory about the raised response on its website, urging people to “avoid unnecessary travel” to South Korea.
The World Health Organization has not issued any special warnings for South Korea and has reaffirmed its confidence that the South Korean health system can overcome the breakout of the disease, known as MERS.
Nonetheless the organization is closely monitoring the progression of the disease, which causes high fever and pneumonia-like symptoms, and is spread through close contact among humans. It is believed to have first been spread to humans from camels in Saudi Arabia three years ago and has now been seen in at least 25 countries.
South Korean officials revealed the names and locations of all 24 hospitals that had confirmed cases after critics accused the government of helping stoke fear and risking a spread of the virus by withholding the information. So far, confirmed cases have infected others only in six of the 24 hospitals they passed through.
“As the numbers of patients and people under quarantine continued to increase, the government decided to take strong steps to help ease the people’s concern and fears,” Deputy Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said at a news conference on Sunday where the names of the hospitals were revealed. Officials said that they had already quarantined people who may have come in contact with infected patients in the hospitals.
Until now, the government had repeatedly declined to reveal the names of all the hospitals, insisting that doing so would incite a panic in the neighborhoods nearby. But many of the names have been circulating through social media for several days.
The South Korean outbreak, the largest reported outside the Middle East, began in St. Mary’s Hospital in Pyeongtaek, a city 37 miles south of Seoul, the capital. The first or so-called index patient, a man who had traveled to the Middle East, was hospitalized at St. Mary’s in May. Since then, 35 other cases have been confirmed at the hospital.
The government first identified the Pyeongtaek hospital on Friday, saying that it was trying to find and monitor everyone who had been there during a two-week period in May.
Officials feared “a second wave” of infections after one of the patients from St. Mary’s checked into the emergency room of the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of the largest hospitals in South Korea, on May 27.
So far, 17 cases have been confirmed among people who spent time in the Samsung emergency room, including 10 of the 14 new cases the Health Ministry reported on Sunday. One of the 10 was a 74-year-old man who died on Friday.
As health experts test people who were recently in the Samsung hospital’s emergency room, “they expect more MERS cases to be found” over the next several days, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
More than 1,800 people believed to have been in contact with a confirmed patient were being monitored in state-run facilities or were under quarantine at home. On Sunday, Mr. Choi said that the government planned to assign a public servant to each of those people to ensure a proper quarantine. It will also monitor their cellphone signals so that the health authorities will be alerted if any of them breaks out of quarantine, he said.
Fear of infection has compelled more than 1,160 kindergartens and schools in South Korea to temporarily close.
MERS was first detected in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The vast majority of the more than 440 deaths attributed to the disease have occurred in the Middle East.
The spread of the virus in South Korea, which in a matter of days has become the worst-afflicted country besides Saudi Arabia, has caused concern throughout Asia. The health authorities in Hong Kong raised their three-stage response level on Monday from “alert” to “serious,” which means ports of entry will exert tighter arrival controls. The Hong Kong Center for Health Protection posted an advisory about the raised response on its website, urging people to “avoid unnecessary travel” to South Korea.
The World Health Organization has not issued any special warnings for South Korea and has reaffirmed its confidence that the South Korean health system can overcome the breakout of the disease, known as MERS.
Nonetheless the organization is closely monitoring the progression of the disease, which causes high fever and pneumonia-like symptoms, and is spread through close contact among humans. It is believed to have first been spread to humans from camels in Saudi Arabia three years ago and has now been seen in at least 25 countries.
South Korean officials revealed the names and locations of all 24 hospitals that had confirmed cases after critics accused the government of helping stoke fear and risking a spread of the virus by withholding the information. So far, confirmed cases have infected others only in six of the 24 hospitals they passed through.
“As the numbers of patients and people under quarantine continued to increase, the government decided to take strong steps to help ease the people’s concern and fears,” Deputy Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said at a news conference on Sunday where the names of the hospitals were revealed. Officials said that they had already quarantined people who may have come in contact with infected patients in the hospitals.
Until now, the government had repeatedly declined to reveal the names of all the hospitals, insisting that doing so would incite a panic in the neighborhoods nearby. But many of the names have been circulating through social media for several days.
The South Korean outbreak, the largest reported outside the Middle East, began in St. Mary’s Hospital in Pyeongtaek, a city 37 miles south of Seoul, the capital. The first or so-called index patient, a man who had traveled to the Middle East, was hospitalized at St. Mary’s in May. Since then, 35 other cases have been confirmed at the hospital.
The government first identified the Pyeongtaek hospital on Friday, saying that it was trying to find and monitor everyone who had been there during a two-week period in May.
Officials feared “a second wave” of infections after one of the patients from St. Mary’s checked into the emergency room of the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of the largest hospitals in South Korea, on May 27.
So far, 17 cases have been confirmed among people who spent time in the Samsung emergency room, including 10 of the 14 new cases the Health Ministry reported on Sunday. One of the 10 was a 74-year-old man who died on Friday.
As health experts test people who were recently in the Samsung hospital’s emergency room, “they expect more MERS cases to be found” over the next several days, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
More than 1,800 people believed to have been in contact with a confirmed patient were being monitored in state-run facilities or were under quarantine at home. On Sunday, Mr. Choi said that the government planned to assign a public servant to each of those people to ensure a proper quarantine. It will also monitor their cellphone signals so that the health authorities will be alerted if any of them breaks out of quarantine, he said.
Fear of infection has compelled more than 1,160 kindergartens and schools in South Korea to temporarily close.
MERS was first detected in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The vast majority of the more than 440 deaths attributed to the disease have occurred in the Middle East.
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