South Korea MERS outbreak largest outside Middle East

With 30 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, South Korea's outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is now the largest outbreak recorded outside of the region that gave name to the virus. 

South Korea was exposed to the disease by one of its nationals who traveled throughout April and May to the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — the two countries with the highest reported MERS deaths at 442 and 10. MERS has since been held responsible by South Korea’s Health Ministry for two deaths in country: a 58-year-old woman who died of acute respiratory failure on Monday; and a 71-year-old man who tested positive for the virus last week. The global death count is now more than 480 since the virus was first identified in 2012, according to European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

With the latest outbreak in South Korea, the confirmed cases of MERS worldwide total about 1,200, but health experts are still uncertain of its origins. Doctors believe it was likely transferred to humans from a camel or another animal in Saudi Arabia, where it was first identified, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Cross-species infection, or zoonosis, has led to other health outbreaks. SARS, for example, which killed hundreds of people during a 2002-03 outbreak, is believed to have started with bats.

Most people who have been confirmed to have the MERS infection develop severe acute respiratory illness and show flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the CDC. MERS can be spread via airborne transmission, so it is easily spread from person to person, putting health care workers, in particular, at risk.

In South Korea, 22 of the 30 cases of MERS were reported in one of the four medical facilities where the initial patient had received treatment after his travels to the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, more than 165 confirmed cases of MERS were reported in health care workers, according to World Health Organization (WHO). 

South Korea has taken precautionary measures since the outbreak, closing one hospital and dozens of schools, and quarantining more than 1,300 people. 

Other than health care workers, family members of infected people and other patients at facilities where they are treated are most at risk because the virus seems to require close contact in order to spread, according to WHO.

Health care officials recommend that anybody who is suspected of having MERS be put on “total precaution.”

“That means a combination of everything we need to do to prevent illnesses from spreading in a health care setting: by contact, by blood, and most importantly and most likely in this case airborne, and that’s the hardest one to do,” Amy Behrman, internist and director of Occupational Medicine Services at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, told Al Jazeera.