Thailand confirms first case of Mers

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Thailand confirms first case of Mers as cost of South Korean patient in China put at 8 million yuan

Country reports man is a 75-year-old visitor from the Middle East

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 18 June, 2015, 11:43pm
UPDATED : Friday, 19 June, 2015, 2:28am

Nectar Gan and Agence France-Presse

Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organisation, has praised South Korean officials for their efforts to contain Mers. Photo: AP

Thai health officials yesterday confirmed the country's first case of Mers since a deadly outbreak of the virus hit South Korea.

"The man is from a Middle Eastern country. Test results confirmed he has the Middle East respiratory syndrome," Thailand's health minister, Rajata Rajatanavin, said.

The 75-year-old had arrived in the kingdom with his family three days ago, he added.

The news came amid reports that Guangdong had spent more than eight million yuan (HK$10 million) and deployed more than 60 medical staff in treating a South Korean patient infected with the deadly virus.

The 44-year-old patient, surnamed Kim, was admitted to a Huizhou hospital on May 28, having travelled to the mainland via Hong Kong. Three weeks later, he is said to be recovering well, but has not been given a release date from the hospital.

"We spared no effort to rescue the patient, whatever the cost. Our experts and our medicine were the best," Huang Yuliang, deputy head of the Huizhou Central People's Hospital, told the Guangzhou Daily.

World Health Organisation head Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun yesterday praised South Korean officials, saying their efforts to contain the outbreak had lowered the risk to the public.

But Chan also said their initial sluggish reaction might have contributed to the virus spreading more widely than expected.

Early on, South Korean officials had struggled to trace people who had come into contact with the virus and they initially refused to identify hospitals where patients were treated.

More than eight million yuan had been spent buying equipment to treat Kim, said Huizhou health bureau head Xu Angao.

Kim had been treated in a negative-pressure isolation ward and he also required a blood gas analyser and a respiratory gas humidifier, Xu said. The hospital also set up a laboratory with bio-containment precautions to monitor him.

Thirteen doctors and more than 50 nurses treated Kim and 25 experts had consulted on the case. These included Zhong Nanshan, who exposed the government cover-up of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.

Eight patients who were being treated in the intensive care unit had to be transferred.

To protect staff, the provincial Health and Family Planning Commission allocated 300 protective suits, 150 pairs of protective glasses and four sterilising sprays to the hospital.

Lin Yun, head of the ICU, said Kim had not developed a fever in the past 10 days, but the virus was still in his body.