Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
Over 6,500 in isolation for MERS
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, right, talks with workers during a visit to a public health center in Gangdong District, Seoul, Wednesday. Park visited the center to encourage health workers whose job is to ask suspected Middle East Respiratory Syndrome patients about their conditions, according to Seoul City. / Yonhap
By Kim Rahn
Death toll increases to 20; confirmed cases to 162
By Kim Rahn
More than 6,500 people have been isolated for possible exposure to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Wednesday.
Meanwhile, another confirmed MERS patient has died, raising the death toll to 20, while eight new cases have been confirmed.
According to the ministry, the number of people subject to isolation was up 17 percent, or 922, from the day before.
Some 446 people were excluded from the government’s isolation order as they had not shown MERS symptoms during the disease’s 14-days incubation period, 1,368 people were newly isolated.
Of the 6,508 people, 598 have been at government-designated quarantine facilities, while the other 5,910 have been ordered to stay home and avoid contact with others.
However, it is not easy for the government to control such a large number of people and some of them have breached the stay-at-home order.
A woman who was supposed to be at home in Seoul went to Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province, insisting she needed to meet her husband there. Police officers in protective clothing went to the husband’s house and persuaded her to go back home.
A man in Daejeon also went out three times despite the isolation order. Unable to contact him, the regional health authority asked the police to find him, and the police caught him by tracking his location using signals from his cell phone.
Another woman in Samseong-dong in Seoul left her home on Sunday and went out of contact. The regional public health center and the police tracked down her with mobile phone signals, and found her at her parents’ home in Mok-dong.
The patient who died was a 54-year-old woman who contracted the disease while visiting Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital in Gyeonggi Province, where the nation’s first MERS patient stayed. She had bronchiectasis and high blood pressure before being infected, the ministry said.
Eight people were newly diagnosed with MERS, with the total number of confirmed cases rising to 162.
Five of them were infected at Samsung Medical Center, the new epicenter of the epidemic where the nation’s 14th patient spread the virus to 80 people.
One of them is radiology technician, and the ministry said it is investigating whether he kept working after symptoms surfaced.
The ministry initially predicted no more outbreaks from the hospital after June 12 when the 14-day incubation period passed since the 14th patient’s visit. But even after that period, more people are confirmed to have been infected there.
As a staffer at the hospital worked from June 2 to 10 despite MERS symptoms and was later confirmed, the ministry is collecting information of all inpatients and outpatients who were at the hospital during the period.
It is checking whether they show MERS symptoms and whether they accompanied family members. “We ask anyone who visited the hospital during the period to report this to regional public health centers or call the MERS hotline, 109,” a ministry official said.
“Our primary goal is to have the epidemic subside by the end of this month.”
Meanwhile, two patients were recovered and released from quarantine facilities, with a total of 19 being recovered.