By Jung Min-ho
A high school student has been diagnosed with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) — the first case among teenagers in Korea, the Ministry of Education said Monday.
Meanwhile, health authorities reported a sixth death from the virus — a man aged 80 from Daejeon.
They also confirmed 23 new cases on Monday, bringing the total to 87.
The education ministry said it was “very unlikely” that other students got the virus from the student, 16, because he had been at a hospital in Seoul for treatment of other illnesses before he showed symptoms of MERS.
“He was admitted to Samsung Medical Center in Seoul on May 27 and had surgery the next day,” the ministry said in a statement. “He was tested for MERS on June 1 immediately after showing symptoms, and then was confirmed positive on June 6.”
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said 34 people had been diagnosed with the virus at Samsung Medical Center. The hospital is the second-biggest source of the virus after Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where the nation’s first and 36 other MERS cases have been confirmed.
Experts say it is rare for people younger than 20 years old to become infected with MERS. In fact, out of the 87 patents, only 15 are younger than 40. However, as the situation develops, fear of the virus is expected to spread further across schools.
The education ministry has ordered 1,869 kindergartens and schools throughout the country to close temporarily in an effort to prevent the virus spreading.
The latest fatality from MERS was only diagnosed on June 7. He died while being treated at a hospital in Daejeon, according to the health ministry.
The man had been in Dae Cheong Hospital with pneumonia since March before a MERS patient was taken to his ward on May 25.
Despite the latest death, the fatality rate of MERS in Korea remains below 10 percent, far lower than the global fatality rate of about 40 percent.
However, the number of MERS-related deaths could rise because the ministry said 10 of those diagnosed were in an “unstable condition.”
More than 2,500 people have been quarantined at ministry-designated hospitals or ordered to stay at home without contacting others, after coming in close contact with a MERS patient.
Health officials are struggling to find reasons for the wide and continued spread of the virus that has been reported in only 23 other countries, with more than 90 percent of all cases reported in Saudi Arabia.
Experts initially suspected generic mutation of the virus, which was later found to be untrue.
The ministry has maintained it has yet to confirm any transmissions through casual, daily contact among people outside hospitals. But it is advising people to avoid large public gatherings.
Korea is the world’s second-worst affected country following Saudi Arabia, where more than 1,000 MERS patients have been confirmed, including the first one in 2012.