MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A fifth death and 14 additional cases of infection with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) were reported Sunday by South Korea’s Health and Welfare Ministry, bringing the number of patients to 64.
The latest person to die was a 75-year-old man who was in the same emergency room with another MERS patient as he was treated at Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul, Yonhap cited a government official as saying.
This comes less than a week after the government admitted the outbreak was a result of insufficient safety measures during hospitalization of the first patients diagnosed with MERS in May 2015.
More than a thousand of people have since been put in quarantine across the country. On Wednesday, the government shut over 500 schools to prevent the disease from spreading.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus (MERS‐CoV). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the typical symptoms of MERS include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
