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24 MERS-related hospitals disclosed in S. Korea after 14 infections added

Source: Xinhua | June 7, 2015, Sunday | Online Edition

TWENTY-FOUR hospitals relevant to the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) infection in South Korea were disclosed today as 14 more cases were reported mostly in the capital Seoul.

Fourteen people were confirmed positive for the viral disease today alone, the fastest daily increase since the patient zero was tested positive on May 20, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The total number of contagion rose to 64. Among the 14 new cases was one death of a 75-year-old patient, who passed away Friday. The death toll increased to five, sending the fatality rate to 7.8 percent.

Ten people contracted the corona virus when they stayed at the emergency room of Samsung Medical Center in Seoul for three days from May 27 together with the 14th patient.

The total number infected at the Samsung hospital surged to 17, including a doctor of the hospital suspected of having contact with thousands of unspecified individuals under MERS contagion.

The hospital said a total of 893 people, including 218 medical staffs and 675 patients and their families, were estimated to have contacted with the 14th patient after analyzing CCTV footages during the three-day period.

All the people exposed to the 35-year-old man have been put under quarantine, and all the areas, through which the man passed, as well as the emergency room were fumigated, the hospital said.

The patient zero visited the Samsung Medical Center and touched with 478 people, including 193 medical staffs and 285 patients and their families, but no one showed any symptoms yet in the incubation period of two weeks.

The 14th infectee was estimated to have transported the virus from the Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital, where the first patient was hospitalized for three days from May 15, in the city of Pyeongtaek some 60 km south of Seoul to the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul.

The 14th infectee traveled to Seoul by bus on May 27 to be hospitalized at the Samsung Medical Center, in which the 35-year- old man infected a total of 17.

Three new cases came from the Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital. The remaining one was the tertiary contagion, in which the new infectee contracted the virus from the 16th patient at the Konyang University Hospital in Daejeon, a city at the center of South Korea.

A total of 28 patients have been infected from the first patient at the Pyeongtaek hospital, and eight others were the cases of tertiary contagion having occurred there.

Five people, including one death, have caught the MERS virus at the Daejeon hospital from the 16th patient who failed to confess that he had been hospitalized at the Pyeongtaek hospital before coming there.

The Daejeon hospital has put under isolation 130 people, including 50 medical staffs, 22 students, 35 patients and 22 family members of the patients.

The South Korean government disclosed the name of 24 hospitals, which MERS infectees were tested positive in or passed through.

Six hospitals, in which the MERS contagions happened, included the Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital, the Samsung Medical Center, the Konyang University Hospital and three other hospitals in capital Seoul, Daejeon and the South Chungcheong Province respectively.

Eighteen hospitals, which infectees just dropped by and there is little possibility for contagion, were five hospitals in Seoul, five in Pyeongtaek, five in the Gyeonggi Province, two in the South Chungcheong Province and one in the North Jeolla Province.

"The hospital names were made public to secure people's safety, " Deputy Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan told a press briefing, saying that hospitals should inevitably be controlled strongly because contagions occurred there.

The disclosure of hospital names were delayed on worries that it may discourage hospitals from treating infectees as people would be reluctant to visit such hospitals and many patients could leave the hospitals.

The disclosure, however, was expected to encourage people visiting the hospitals to actively report their past visit to the health authorities, making it easier for the authorities to reach and examine them for possible contagion.

Choi said the MERS crisis would last until mid-June. Given the fact that the 14th patient left the Samsung Medical Center on May 29, additional contagions were not expected to be added from June 12 when the two-week latent period ends.

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