Outbreak of MERS in South Korea ‘large and complex,’ experts say
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THE deadly MERS outbreak in South Korea is “large and complex” and more cases should be expected, a team of World Health Organization experts said yesterday.
WHO and South Korean health authorities have conducted a joint mission to review the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, the largest outside Saudi Arabia.
The outbreak in South Korea has been spreading at an unusually fast pace, with 138 confirmed infections as of yesterday, with the country’s first case diagnosed on May 20.
South Korea yesterday reported the 14th death from the disease and 12 new cases, including that of an ambulance driver who transported a patient infected with the virus.
“Now the outbreak has been large and is complex, more cases should be anticipated,” said WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Security Keiji Fukuda.
“Because of this, the government should remain vigilant and should continue its intensified disease surveillance and prevention measures until the outbreak is clearly over.”
He praised South Korean authorities for their strong tracing, monitoring and quarantine measures, backed by expanded laboratory diagnostic testing.
There is a “great deal of anxiety” among Koreans over the outbreak, he said, particularly over whether the virus has mutated to make human-to-human transmission easier.
“Based on studies of the genetics of the virus, we do not see any changes that appear to have made the virus more transmissible”, Fukuda said.
The outbreak is showing epidemiological patterns similar to the one occurring in hospitals in the Middle East, he said.
At present, the mission has found no evidence to indicate that there are ongoing transmissions of the virus in communities outside hospitals in South Korea, he said.
The joint mission has identified some reasons to explain why the virus infected a “large number of people in a relatively short period of time” in this country, Fukuda said.
The virus was unfamiliar to most Koreans, making doctors less likely to suspect the MERS virus as a potential cause of infection when diagnosing respiratory illnesses.
“Infection prevention and control measures were not optimal” in some hospitals, with overcrowded emergency rooms and many patients sharing a single hospital room, thus creating an environment for the virus to spread easily, he said.
South Koreans’ habit of “doctor shopping” — seeking care at different medical facilities — and the custom of having many friends and family visit patients might have contributed to the secondary spread of the infection, he said.
He recommended continued enforcement of public health measures to stop cases spreading and urged infected people or those who have had contact with them not to travel.
The ministry of health said yesterday that all 14 of the people killed by the virus had pre-existing health conditions, with the most recent — a 68-year-old woman who contracted the virus at a hospital in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul — suffering from hypertension and hypothyroidism.
The new cases include an ambulance driver who fell ill after taking a 75-year-old infected woman to Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul last Sunday.
Of 133 people whose contact with infected patients have been traced, the largest single group of 60 contracted the disease at Samsung Medical Centre, one of the largest hospitals in Seoul.
Five other cases are being investigated to find out the source of the infection.
South Korea’s first infected patient was diagnosed on May 20 after a trip to Saudi Arabia.
The 68-year-old man visited four medical facilities, infecting other patients and medics, before he was finally diagnosed.
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