Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Authorities on alert over mysterious pneumonia from China
Quarantine officers check the temperatures of passengers arriving at Incheon International Airport, on flights from Dubai, in this Sep. 10, 2018 file photo. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are taking preventive measures against the spread of a mysterious pneumonia from China, although no suspected cases were reported in Korea yet. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Health authorities are stepping up precautionary measures to prevent possible spread of a mysterious pneumonia from China as nearly 1,800 people entered Korea via the Chinese city of Wuhan, the site of the first outbreak, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said Tuesday.
The KCDC said it has been taking necessary quarantine steps, including tightened control at immigration booths and temperature screening on all flights from Wuhan, the capital of China's central Hubei Province. The health authority has been on high alert as it was when Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) hit the nation in 2015, the KCDC said.
According to the disease control center, there are eight flights a week from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport to Incheon International Airport, operated by Korean Air and China Southern Airlines.
Given that the outbreak of the illness was first identified Dec.31, at least nine flights carried passengers from Wuhan to Korea. The number of inbound passengers to the country by flights from Wuhan is around 200 per flight, meaning about 1,800 people entered Korea via Wuhan.
However, no suspected cases of pneumonia in Korea have been reported so far.
“No serious pneumonia cases linked to the Wuhan outbreak have been reported in Korea so far,” said Kwak Jin, a deputy director of the KCDC's infectious disease control bureau.
But the problem is that the cause of the outbreak of pneumonia still remains a mystery, although Chinese officials said it is not the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, which was first discovered in China in 2003, it does not appear to spread quickly between people.
The cause of the disease, as well as epidemiological investigations, remain unknown at all, with the possibility of the virus entering Korea.
“At the moment, we are working on monitoring of the disease in cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) China Country Office. Investigations are still being carried out, but Chinese health authorities cannot yet confirm what pathogen is causing the illness,” Kwak said.
As of Jan. 5, there were 59 cases reported in Wuhan, according to an update from Wuhan's municipal health commission. Seven of the patients are seriously ill, and no one has died. Separately, Hong Kong has reported 21 possible cases.
The health authority in Wuhan said it will seeking the cause but have so far ruled out influenza, avian influenza, adenovirus and coronaviruses SARS and MERS.