A group of medical experts said Thursday that South Korea can contain the MERS virus as it stepped up quarantine measures for infected patients and those who came into contact with the patients.
Song Jae-hoon, an infectious disease expert and head of Samsung Medical Center, said the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome does not spread through the air, citing data currently available.
He said the simple measure to stop the spread of the virus is to isolate infected patients, people who are suspected of being infected with the virus and those who came into contact with infected patients.
The spread of the virus “will be stopped if quarantine measures are effectively used,” he said in a meeting with top officials of the ruling Saenuri Party.
His comments came amid a widespread public scare of the virus following the deaths of two patients. Earlier in the day, South Korea reported five additional cases of MERS, raising to 35 the number of people diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease.
Every patient is now isolated and being treated at state-designated hospitals.
Kim Moo-sung, the ruling party chief, said the government bungled its initial response to the virus outbreak but widespread fear and rumors about the virus are to blame for the public overreaction.
“The people overreacted way too much,” Choo Moo-jin, head of Korean Medical Association, said at the meeting.
Experts say the virus cannot be spread to people unless they come in contact with infected patients or medical staff who treated the patients.
“There is almost no possibility that ordinary people, who have no contact with MERS patients, can be infected with MERS,” said the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases, adding there is no need for excessive fear.
Still, more than 700 schools have canceled classes across the country as a precaution. The vast majority of the total, or 588 schools, are in Gyeonggi Province, where the first case of MERS in South Korea was reported.
The Korean Society of Infectious Diseases described the move by some schools as “too much of an emotional measure.”
It said the virus’ fatality rate could be about 10 percent, which is not higher than that of pneumonia in South Korea.
Kim called on the government to release all information on the virus in real time to ensure that rumors will not spread on the Internet, though he stopped short of asking the government to release the names of hospitals where people infected with the virus have been placed in quarantine.
Some South Koreans asked the government to release the names of the hospitals in question, citing their right to know.
But experts warned side effects of naming the hospitals would far outweigh any benefits.
“If hospitals’ names are made public, it could scare away people due to a sense of fear and ordinary patients could suffer if they don’t receive emergency measures in emergency rooms,” said Lee Jae-gap, an infectious disease expert at Hallym University Medical Center near Seoul. (Yonhap)
