South Korea confirmed its first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) last month and now has over 680 people in isolation to deter the spread of the MERS virus.
It all started with a 68-year-old man who traveled to Bahrain and returned to South Korea through Qatar. This man in turn has infected at least 18 people, all of whom were either patients or visitors in the hospital he was confined in. One of the sons of those infected then brought the virus to China after ignoring his doctor's orders to cancel his trip, becoming the country's first confirmed case.
With the MERS scare in full swing in South Korea, traveling to and from the country has now been affected. Hyundai Motor, the fifth largest car manufacturer in the world with affiliate Kia Motors, for instance, has requested its employees to avoid traveling to the Middle East to curb the spread of the MERS virus within the company.
Chinese tourists have also canceled their travel plans to South Korea, with the country's top travel agency Hana Tour being quoted as saying around 300 people from China have dropped interest in going to South Korea due to fears that MERS is spreading in the country.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye urged officials in her administration to embark on an all-out effort to bolster the country's quarantine system to prevent MERS from spreading further. She said that initial response had been insufficient given the importance of responding early in keeping contagious diseases at bay so now public health officials must make up for the lapse by ensuring that all those who have come into contact with patients confirmed to carry MERS will be properly isolated.
If MERS is starting to sound like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), it's because the disease is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the SARS virus. There is currently no cure or vaccine for MERS so the next best thing to do is to prevent the virus from settling in and making people sick.
Believed to be transmitted by camels, the MERS virus was first confirmed in a case in Saudi Arabia back in 2012. According to the World Health Organization, more than a thousand people have been infected around the world and over 400 have succumbed to the MERS virus. The incubation period for the disease is about five days but the virus can develop anywhere between two and 14 days.
Photo: Hernán Piñera | Flickr
