The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday it will continue to monitor the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in South Korea after issuing a travel notice advising travelers to take precautions.
The CDC issued the notice last week, putting South Korea in the “Level 1” or “Watch” category, the lowest of the three-step advisory system, which calls for practicing usual precautions, such as washing hands, and does not advise against traveling to the country.
“The notice was prompted by the confirmation of a disease not previously seen in South Korea,” a CDC official said in an email to Yonhap News Agency. “Many factors are taken into consideration when deciding to post travel notices, such as whether the situation has the potential to affect U.S. travelers, the risk of international spread, and the likelihood that the situation will have a serious effect on public health.”
The official said the agency “will continue to monitor the MERS outbreak in South Korea.”
A Level 2 travel notice is issued “if special precautions are needed” for all travelers or for specific groups of travelers and Level 3 notices are “used rarely and are reserved for the most serious situations for which no precautions are known to be protective,” the official said. (Yonhap)
