South Korean authorities squabbled yesterday over their handling of an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), as a fourth person died and five new cases were reported.
The government has promised to do everything it can to end the outbreak which began in South Korea last month when an infected man brought it back from a business trip to the Middle East.
With 41 cases, South Korea has the most infections outside the Middle East, where the disease first appeared in 2012 and where most of the 440 fatalities have been.
Photo: EPA
As the number of infections in South Korea rises daily, fear and anger are growing. South Korea’s neighbors are also increasingly concerned.
Memories are still fresh in Asia of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which emerged in 2002 and 2003 and killed about 800 people worldwide. MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS.
South Korean Minister of Health Moon Hyung-pyo accused authorities in the capital, Seoul, of giving out incorrect information about a case, which he said would spread alarm and undermine the fight against the disease.
On Thursday, city officials accused the national authorities of being slow to share information, in particular about a doctor who had treated a MERS patient and subsequently went to a May 30 gathering attended by 1,565 people.
The doctor was later diagnosed with MERS and the people at the gathering have been advised to stay in voluntary quarantine.
Moon rejected assertions his ministry had mishandled the case.
“The announcement by the city of Seoul yesterday has parts that are not factual and can increase public concern,” Moon said.
The comments would only hurt the credibility of the government’s effort to stamp out MERS, he said.
The most recent MERS patient to die was a 76-year-old man, who had been in the same ward as other MERS patients and had been suffering from various ailments, the health ministry said.
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