South Korea’s health ministry yesterday 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.
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.
The spread of the disease has stirred up public fear and confusion, prompting President Park Geunhye 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 Organisation mission on Wednesday recommended that schools be reopened as they were unlikely to spread the disease, just as school boards recommended more be shut.
There is no cure or vaccine
Eight of the 14 new cases, including the pregnant woman, have been linked to the same Seoul hospital, the health ministry said. The woman’s parents had also previously tested positive to MERS. The woman was reported to be in stable condition.
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. Meanwhile later yesterday Hong Kong authorities were testing two people for possible MERS as worry grew across the region about an outbreak in South Korea.
The two Hong Kong people had both recently travelled to South Korea, said the clinic that was treating them. Hong Kong issued a 'red alert' advisory on Tuesday against non-essential travel to South Korea. One case has been reported in China, that of a South Korean man who travelled there after defying a suggestion from health authorities in South Korea that he stay in voluntary quarantine.
Hong Kong's travel industry council has also cancelled 600 tour groups to South Korea, affecting about 12,000 travellers.