President Park Geun-hye will hold an emergency meeting to contain the MERS virus that has killed two South Koreans, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.
The meeting scheduled later Wednesday is designed to comprehensively check quarantines and other efforts to stop the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, said presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook.
The announcement comes amid rising public concerns over the spread of the virus.
Health officials confirmed that five more people have been infected with the virus, bringing the tally to 30.
In a sign of precaution, more than 200 schools have canceled classes across the country, mostly in Gyeonggi Province, where a 58-year-old woman died on Monday before she was confirmed to have been infected with the virus.
She is one of the two people who died after having contact with the country’s first MERS patient.
The affected schools account for about 1 percent of some 20,000 schools nationwide, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea said.
MERS is a viral respiratory illness that is fairly new to humans with only some 1,100 confirmed cases reported throughout the world.
There currently is no vaccine or treatment for the disease. (Yonhap)
