South Korea has issued a declaration that the country is effectively out of danger from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). "It is the assessment of the government and the medical community that the public can rest easy," South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said during a government meeting.
The outbreak, which killed 36 people, started more than 2months ago when the first case was reported and it originally began spreading through hospital settings. A total of 186 people became infected. At its peak, nearly 17,000 people were put under quarantine. The start of the epidemic was traced to one person, a man who returned home to South Korea from a business trip to the Middle East in May.
Twelve people remain hospitalized in South Korea and under treatment for MERS, but only one still has active virus, the Health Ministry said. No new cases have been reported since July 4. The virus has an incubation period of about 2 weeks.
The MERS outbreak has a major effect on the South Korean economy, which had already been a bit weak. It knocked second-quarter growth to its lowest point in more than six years. Schools were closed, consumers stayed home, and foreign tourists cancelled their trips.
This announcement does not mean that the MERS outbreak is over, but Hwang urged people to return to normal daily life. The South Korean government will be putting into place reforms intended to fix health care shortcomings that were exposed during the outbreak, Hwang stated, but he did not specify what steps it would take.
The MERS virus is in the same family of coronaviruses as the virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). There was a large outbreak of SARS in Asia in 2003.
Twenty-six countries have reported cases of MERS since 2012, mostly in travelers from the Middle East. British health authorities are investigating two suspected cases of MERS in northern England.
