South Korea reports 5th MERS death, 14 more infections
Fourteen more people have been diagnosed with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea as the disease takes its fifth victim there.
South Korean health officials announced the death of a 75-year-old man on Sunday. He had been in a hospital in the capital, Seoul, alongside other sufferers.
The virus has so far infected a total number of 64 patients in South Korea, making it the biggest outbreak of MERS outside the Middle East.
Over 1,600 people have now been quarantined and hundreds of schools have closed amid efforts to stop the further spread of the disease.
All of the infections have reportedly taken place in healthcare facilities, sparking criticism of the way medical authorities are handling the epidemic.
According to reports, 10 out of the 14 new cases in South Korea emereged at the same hospital in Seoul.
The outbreak in South Korea has been traced to the original case of a 68-year-old man diagnosed with the virus after coming back from Saudi Arabia.
MERS is a cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). It first emerged in the Middle East, and was discovered in September 2012 in a Qatari man who had traveled to Saudi Arabia.
The virus, which causes coughing, fever, pneumonia and kidney failure, does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.
MERS, for which no vaccine is currently available, spreads through close contact with infected people but is not airborne.
The World Health Organization says MERS has a death rate of 27 percent.
MR/MKA/HJL
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