South Korea reports jump in MERS cases

South Korea reported a jump in cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Monday while an 80-year-old man became the sixth fatality from the outbreak in the country and other Asian nations began taking preventive measures against the disease.

South Korean authorities closed nearly 2,000 schools and said fewer than 10 people who had broken quarantine rules were located and taken back home. In several cases, they were located through cellphone tracking.

Malaysia advised its nationals to avoid South Korea and Singapore postponed or cancelled all school trips to the country, although the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said she believed Seoul would be able to control the further spread of the virus by taking appropriate measures.

The latest MERS patient to die in South Korea was hospitalized for pneumonia when he was infected, officials in the city of Daejeon said. He was confirmed to have contracted the virus from another patient at a hospital.

South Korea now has the largest outbreak of MERS outside Saudi Arabia, according to statistics from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Underlining concern about the spread of the disease, South Korean authorities said they would track the cellphones of about 2,500 people under quarantine who may have been in contact with patients. Some of those under quarantine are in healthcare facilities although most are at home.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, a South Korean disease control center official, said local health officials and police were keeping tabs on those quarantined.

"We are actively tracing their locations, cooperating with police or using other methods. We did cellphone tracking in a couple of cases. For contacts we must find, we will request location tracking and receive data," Jeong told reporters.

Local health officials have found some people, fewer than 10, who had broken quarantine and taken them back home, Jeong said, adding that those who break the rules can be fined.

A team of experts from the WHO was due to begin work on Tuesday to evaluate the response to the outbreak, including why it had spread so fast and advise on further measures.

The South Korean culture of families looking after their loved ones at hospitals may have been part of the reason for it to spread within healthcare facilities, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told the Yonhap news agency.

Departing from its earlier policy, the government on Sunday disclosed the names of the 24 hospitals where the MERS patients have been diagnosed or had been treated before their condition was confirmed. This will allow people who have visited those facilities in recent weeks to report themselves if they are showing symptoms similar to MERS-related illnesses, officials said.

The government had earlier refused to reveal the names of those hospitals saying it would cause a disruption in services if people started avoiding them.

The country's first patient returned from Saudi Arabia in early May, officials have said.

Seventeen of the new South Korean cases come from the same Seoul hospital emergency room where the country's first patient was diagnosed, the ministry said.

There were no additional cases from another hospital, which produced the first wave of infections with 37 patients.

First identified in humans in 2012, MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

The virus has no vaccine, and health experts say it spreads through close contact with infected people and not through the air.

Health experts are still uncertain of how MERS originated. Doctors believe it was likely transferred from a camel or another animal in Saudi Arabia, where it was first identified, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

South Korea's new cases bring the total globally to more than 1,200, based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least 445 related deaths.

Al Jazeera with wire services