By Kim Rahn
The government declared the end of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak, more than seven months after the infectious disease broke out here.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Wednesday that the country would be officially free of the respiratory disease at 12 a.m. today, 218 days after the first case appeared.
Thursday would be 28 days — double the incubation period of the virus — since the last patient’s death. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises waiting double the incubation period of a disease before declaring the end to an epidemic.
“The threat of MERS has been resolved officially, meaning there are no worries about MERS infections,” a ministry official said. “Still, it doesn’t mean the disease will not recur because it could possibly again come from another country.”
The official also said that there is always the chance of new infectious diseases from overseas.
“We’ll keep improving readiness for possible future outbreaks.”
Earlier on July 28, the government announced a de facto end to MERS, as no new infections had been found for more than three weeks, asking people to put their worries virus behind them and resume normal daily activities.
The WHO also announced in October the end of transmission. The government lowered its readiness level for the disease from “yellow” to “blue,” the lowest level, on Dec. 1, following the Nov. 25 death of the last remaining patient.
The outbreak began in May 20 when a 67-year-old man tested positive for the virus after returning from the Middle East earlier that month.
Since then, a total of 186 people have been infected with MERS, including a teenager and a pregnant woman. Thirty-eight of them died, for a fatality rate of 20.4 percent. More than 16,000 people were quarantined in isolation wards or at home.
The government initially did not disclose the hospitals visited by patients or suspected patients. The list was disclosed on June 7 only after the disease spread to other patients and their visitors.
Dozens of clinics and hospitals were shut down, including Samsung Medical Center’s emergency room where more than half of the total patients contracted the virus.
Health Minister Moon Hyung-pyo stepped down later to take responsibility for the government’s poor response to the outbreak.
The last patient, a 35-year-old man who had suffered from malignant lymphoma before contracting MERS, was first diagnosed with MERS on June 7.
He was discharged from quarantine on Oct. 3 after testing negative, but readmitted eight days later, after a positive test. He died on Nov. 25, having spent 172 days in quarantine.