South Korean hospitals suspend services as MERS outbreak spreads

Two major hospitals in South Korea’s capital suspended services to patients on Wednesday in a bid to stop the spread of MERS after four new cases of the deadly virus were reported. The new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome included two who were in the same hospital ward as other patients with the potentially deadly virus, Seoul’s health ministry said. The others were a nurse at Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul – one of the epicentres of the outbreak – and a relative of a patient who was hospitalised for an unspecified disease in a hospital in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, in early June.

Our Samsung Medical Center could not stop the infection and the spread of the MERS, causing so much pain and worries to the public. I bow my head to apologize.

Lee Jae-yong, heir to the Samsung group said this week.

Out of 179 people confirmed to have caught MERS, five were infected through unknown transmission routes outside hospitals, which have until now been at the epicentre of the outbreak, the ministry said. A total of 27 people have died in South Korea’s MERS outbreak – the largest outside Saudi Arabia – while about 3,100 people were being held under quarantine at state facilities or at home. There is no known vaccine for MERS, which has infected more than 1,330 people – mostly in Saudi Arabia – in 26 countries since first reported in 2012, according to the WHO.

Asia-Pacific