South Korean cancer patient is 10th person to die from Mers amid outbreak
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 11 June, 2015, 5:45pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 11 June, 2015, 5:49pm
Reuters in Seoul
A worker wearing protective gear fumigates as a precaution against the spread of Mers outside a subway station in Seoul. Photo: AP
A South Korean man with terminal lung cancer who had been infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) died today – the 10th person to die from the virus since the outbreak began last month.
The 65-year-old man, diagnosed with Mers on June 7, had been confined to the same hospital ward as another patient later diagnosed with Mers, the health ministry said in a statement.
Worry in South Korea about the disease has been reflected across the region, with dozens of suspected cases being tested in Hong Kong, though none confirmed, and many thousands of people cancelling trips to South Korea.
South Korea’s outbreak, with 122 confirmed cases of infection and 10 deaths, is the largest outside Saudi Arabia and began last month when a 68-year-old South Korean businessman brought the disease back from a trip to the Middle East.
South Korean medical workers in full protective gear guide a man in front of the emergency section at the Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul. Photo: AFP
Dubbed “patient zero”, he was diagnosed with Mers on May 20 and all subsequent infections have been traced to him, and happened in health facilities.
President Park Geun-hye has put off a trip to the United States to deal with the disease as the total number of cases rises daily.
Among the new South Korean cases was a pregnant woman who contracted the virus in an emergency ward that has been linked to other confirmed cases, the health ministry said.
The woman’s pregnancy would limit the scope of treatment available, but she was in stable condition, the ministry said. The woman’s parents had previously tested positive for Mers.
Another new patient was a police officer in the city of Pyeongtaek, where dozens of infections occurred, all linked to the first patient.
The outbreak forced South Korea to cut interest rates today in the hope of softening the blow to an economy already burdened by slack demand. The central bank of Asia’s fourth-biggest economy said it had to act and cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to a record-low 1.50 per cent.
“We decided to cut rates today in a pre-emptive move to contain the economic fallout from Mers,” Bank of Korea governor Lee Ju-yeol told a media briefing.
Governor of the Bank of Korea Lee Ju-yeol said the rate cut was a pre-emptive move to contain the economic fallout from Mers. Photo: AP
One positive sign was a decrease in the number of South Korea’s schools and universities that have closed.
The total dipped to 2,431 today from about 2,700 the previous day after a joint team of experts from the WHO and South Korea recommended that schools be reopened as they were unlikely to spread the disease.
Mers was first identified in humans in 2012. Most of the global cases, which number 1,271 according to WHO data, and at least 448 related deaths, have been in the Middle East.
But memories are fresh in Asia of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), which emerged in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people worldwide. Among the hardest-hit was Hong Kong.
Mers is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused Sars. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as easily, at least for now. Its symptoms include fever and a cough.
Hong Kong issued a “red alert” advisory on Tuesday against non-essential travel to South Korea while Singapore Airlines said it would waive fees for customers who want to cancel or rebook flights to South Korea.
Thirty-one people in Hong Kong who suspected they might have caught the disease have tested negative.
Despite the fears, only one case has been reported outside South Korea in the current outbreak, that of a South Korean man who travelled to China via Hong Kong after defying a suggestion from health authorities in South Korea that he stay in voluntary quarantine.
China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the country was fully capable of containing any outbreak. “There is no need to panic,” the Xinhua news agency quoted the centre’s deputy head, Feng Zijian, as saying.
