No new MERS cases or deaths in S. Korea

SEOUL, June 29, (Agencies): South Korea reported no new cases of MERS or deaths from the virus for the first time in nine days Monday, but officials warned there was no indication yet that the outbreak had been brought under control.

The number of those infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome remained unchanged for two days in a row at 182, the health ministry said.

The death toll also remained unchanged from 32 on Sunday. It is the first time that the country has reported no additional infections as well as no new deaths since June 20.

Then, officials voiced hope that they were winning the battle against the outbreak — only to see the number of fatalities and infections rise again, sparking public criticism that their optimism was premature.

The number of new patients has generally been in decline since mid-June, when it often jumped by double digits — with many of the new infections stemming from Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul, at the epicentre of the outbreak.

But officials remained cautious Monday as they monitored developments at another hospital in eastern Seoul, where a MERS patient potentially came into contact with thousands of people before being diagnosed on June 22 and dying two days later.

“This week falls within the incubation period involving that case, so we are keeping a close eye on the situation and will do our best to prevent further spread of the virus,” Kwon Duk-Cheol, a senior health ministry official, told reporters.

A total of 2,682 people are currently under quarantine either in state facilities or at home.

Fourteen patients are in critical condition, the ministry said, adding a total of 93 people have recovered and been released from hospital, including two on Sunday.

The outbreak began on May 20 when a 68-year-old man was diagnosed after returning from a trip from Saudi Arabia.

Since then the potentially deadly virus has spread at an unusually rapid pace, becoming the largest outbreak outside Saudi Arabia and sparking public alarm at home and elsewhere in Asia.

There is no vaccine for the disease, which has a mortality rate of about 36 percent, according to World Health Organisation.

The fatality rate in South Korea is about 17 percent.

The outbreak has dealt a severe blow to the Asia’s fourth-largest economy, with the government facing a storm of criticism for slow and insufficient response in the initial stages.

Meanwhile, an Omani man who became Thailand’s first case of Middle East Respiratory Sydnrome (MERS) has been declared free of the deadly virus, Thailand’s health ministry said on Monday.

The 75-year-old man, who had travelled to Bangkok for treatment for a heart condition and was then diagnosed with the virus, will remain in quarantine for the time being.

“In the last test results we did not find the MERS virus in the patient,” Surachet Satitramai, acting permanent secretary at the Public Health Ministry, told Reuters.

“His condition is much better but we still need to see if his other health conditions, including his heart condition, will have any effect on his recovery.”

He said three of the man’s relatives who travelled with him to Thailand were also free of the virus. Thailand’s health ministry is still monitoring 36 people who were exposed to its single patient.

Thailand confirmed its first case of MERS earlier this month, becoming the fourth Asian country to register the virus this year.

In South Korea, which is battling the largest MERS outbreak outside Saudi Arabia, 31 people have died from the virus. South Korea’s public health ministry reported one new case on Friday, taking the total to 181.

Health authorities have said the virus may have levelled off but were more guarded in their assessment last week.

Thailand’s status as a hub for medical tourism could be helping it contain the spread of MERS, government and health officials said last week.

First identified in humans in 2012, MERS is caused by a corona virus from the same family as the one that triggered the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

There is no cure or vaccine.

Ebola: One of the three districts of Sierra Leone where new cases of Ebola have been recorded will jail those who break a new emergency by-law designed to prevent the spread of the disease, an official said Sunday.

The District Ebola Response Centre Coordinator, Raymond Kabia said “a high-level stakeholders meeting” on Friday decided that “violators of the by-laws would no longer be fined but will go to jail for six months instead”.

“People caught in sacred burials and washing bodies, transporting sick people in vehicles, traditional healers treating the sick and those hiding sick people in homes will be jailed for six months without the option of fines”, he told local reporters in Port Loko, 74 miles north of the capital.

“We have sacked over ten Section Chiefs and similar number of village headmen in the past and fined them... but people have still not learned the lesson. This time anyone who thinks this is a joke will be playing with fire,” he said.

The official said President Ernest Bai Koroma has ordered all government ministers and lawmakers from the districts affected to go to the areas to help in the operation to stop new infections.

Officials who returned to the capital on Sunday after a two-day assessment tour of Port Loko and Kambia blamed herbalists in the two districts for spreading the virus by secretly treating sick people in the belief that the disease is linked to witchcraft and sorcery.

A total of 1,029 people are under quarantine.

The worst outbreak of Ebola in history began in Sierra Leone in October. It has seen nearly 27,500 infections in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea of which more than 11,200 have been fatal, although official data is widely believed to have underestimated the figures.

The numbers of infections has slowed dramatically in recent months.