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3 more MERS infections reported in South Korea

In this photo, dated June 17, 2015, a man wearing a mask poses for a photo on a street in the Myeongdong area of Seoul, South Korea. The country has reported three more cases of infection with MERS. (AFP photo)

Three more people have been diagnosed with the MERS virus in South Korea, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 169.

The South Korean Health Ministry announced the new cases on Sunday, as the pace of the spread of the deadly virus has slowed down in the Asian country. 

One of the new cases is a doctor who treated a MERS patient at Samsung Medical Center in the capital, Seoul, the epicenter of the epidemic. Over 80 infections have so far been confirmed in the city, which is home to more than 10 million people.

The other case is a medical worker who took X-rays of a MERS patient in another hospital in Seoul.

The disease have killed 25 people in South Korea up to now, while a total of 43 people have recovered, according to health officials.

Before the announcement of the new infections, South Korea had reported no new cases of MERS for the first time in 16 days.

MERS, which stands for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is a variant of the SARS virus, causes coughing, fever, pneumonia and kidney failure, but it does not appear to be as contagious as SARS, which swept the Far East and killed some 800 people in a 2003 epidemic.

The vast majority of MERS infections and deaths have been reported in Saudi Arabia, where more than 950 people have been infected and 412 have died of the illness.

There is no vaccine or cure available for the virus yet.

MR/HSN/HJL


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