S. Korea reports 1st two suspected cases of monkeypox A passenger arriving from overseas enters the arrival lobby of Terminal 1 at Incheon airport, west of Seoul, on June 22, 2022, as health authorities reported two patients, who recently arrived in the country, are suspected to have been infected with monkeypox. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said diagnostic tests are being conducted on the two probable cases. (Yonhap)
Via a reader tip comes news that a virus is spreading among workers at the Winter Olympics:
Soldiers guard the entrance to Gangneung Oval on Feb. 5 after they replaced 1,200 Olympics security agents who were quarantined the same day because some have contracted norovirus. / Yonhap
Some security agents responsible for the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games have been infected with norovirus, forcing organizers to quarantine about 1,200 agents and replace them with soldiers.
The committee categorized 41 staff members as “suspected patients” on Monday.
Earlier the day, the committee had said three of them were confirmed to have contracted the virus, also known as the winter vomiting bug, while 38 were suspected of having it.
The patients vomited and suffered from stomach pains.Some of the agents were in charge of the athletes’ village, raising concerns that the virus may affect international athletes who will stay there.
The patients, mostly university students, were hired by a recruiting agency to provide workforce for screening at the entrance of venues.
Organizers said the virus appeared to have originated from Horeb Odaesan Youth Training Center in PyeongChang, where the agents stayed in a room for six in a group of 10. The Institute of Health and Environment under Gangwon Province Office found traces of the virus in a drinking water dispenser, and in shower rooms and in washroom basins. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but if a number of athletes get sick because of this virus, this will be a major setback for South Korea who is hosting the games.
A soldier is checked for a fever at the Army’s Special Warfare Command in Seoul on June 16, 2015, before he participates in a field training exercise, as a precaution against the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). As of that day, South Korea had confirmed four additional cases of the viral respiratory illness with three more deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 154 with 19 deaths. (Yonhap)
It is probably smart that the nationalities of these expats are not being released because I can just see some people trying to blame a certain nationality for the MERS spread:
Dozens of foreigners have been put in quarantine for Middle East respiratory syndrome, but health authorities have yet to identify all of their nationalities, sources said Tuesday.
The Health and Welfare Ministry said that about 20 to 30 foreigners in Korea were ordered to be under home monitoring as they were suspected to have been exposed to MERS-confirmed patients.
As of Tuesday, more than 5,000 individuals in the country are being monitored at home for possible infection.
The exact number and nationality of those concerned has not been fully confirmed because the information of their home countries was not collected in the initial stages of the screening, according to the ministry.
“Once the MERS response team sends the list of those that they assume could be foreigners, we first identify based on names whether they are Korean nationals or not, and then proceed with the personal identification. So far, it may be uncertain, but there are believed to be around 20 to 30 expats under quarantine monitoring,” a Health Ministry official who is in charge of foreign affairs told The Korea Herald.
“The nationality identification is underway, but even if everything is confirmed, their nationalities will be kept confidential because of diplomatic issues,” she said, adding that some countries ask that the information not be released. [Korea Herald]
It will probably take just one kid to get infected by MERS to cause all these schools to get shutdown again:
President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday visited a primary school in southern Seoul, which has reopened following the weeklong shutdown over the deadly MERS virus.
The visit is the latest in a series of public activities designed to allay public fears about the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that has killed 19 South Koreans.
The school had been closed for seven days last week as a precautionary measure against the virus. The school is located near Samsung Medical Center, which has been a major source of infections.
“I will do my best to ensure that (the virus) is brought to an end,” Park said in a meeting with students during a separate visit to a middle school in western Seoul. The middle school was closed for two days last week.
The visit came as South Korea reported four new cases of the viral respiratory illness that put the total number of people diagnosed with the disease at 154 — about half of them infected in Samsung Medical Center. [Yonhap]
Hopefully the spread of MERS is contained so the people in Pyeongtaek can get back to normal lives. Fortunately the ROK Air Force servicemember who tested positive for MERS recently has recovered:
A truck emits disinfectant smoke around Saint Mary’s Hospital in Pyeongtaek on Wednesday. South Korea’s first MERS patient spent three days in the hospital, spreading the disease to at least 30 others. Photo: European Pressphoto Agency
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea—A city best known by many for its nearby U.S. military base and surrounding rice paddies became ground zero as a deadly virus rarely seen outside the Middle East began to spread through South Korea.
At St. Mary’s Hospital in a newly developing industrial area of Pyeongtaek, about 35 miles south of Seoul, doctors puzzled for three days in mid-May over the flulike condition of a 68-year-old man, who hadn’t disclosed at that point that he had recently returned from the Middle East.
The man left St. Mary’s and was later admitted to a larger hospital in Seoul, where he was ultimately diagnosed with Middle East respiratory syndrome and was quarantined. But during that time in St. Mary’s, the man spread the MERS virus to more than 30 people. (…………………………)
A South Korean Defense Ministry official said one Korean man stationed at the Osan Air Base near Pyeongtaek who tested positive for MERS would be released on Thursday. The air base is close to the main U.S. military base of Camp Humphreys for which Pyeongtaek is known.
St. Mary’s was the first hospital named by the government as being part of the MERS outbreak. All patients, including MERS sufferers, have been moved to other hospitals. [Wall Street Journal via reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but it is going to be interesting to learn why MERS spread so widely in various hospitals as well as why so few people have died compared to outbreaks in the Middle East.
YONGSAN, South Korea – A USFK service member at Camp Humphreys self-reported a potential exposure to the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome virus and is experiencing some symptoms associated with MERS. The service member previously received treatment at an affected Korean hospital before the hospital was identified as having a MERS patient. USFK is continuing to monitor the service member’s health and the individual has been isolated to on-post quarters, pending test results to assess infection. If test results establish that the service member has been infected, the individual will be placed into a special-care facility for MERS treatment and isolation.
For the most current MERS information, please go to USFK.mil and listen to AFN radio and television. [Camp Humphreys Facebook page via a reader tip]
I checked the USFK webpage for any updates and it is currently down. The USFK Facebook page however has a message on there from U.S. Forces Korea commander, Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti directing service members, civilians, and their families to contact their chain of command and healthcare providers prior to completing any off-installation hospital referrals within the Republic of Korea. Let’s all hope that if this USFK servicemember does in fact have MERS that he has a speedy recovery.
It is about time that the government released the names of the MERS infected hospitals so that the public can make a choice on whether they want to go to that hospital or not:
South Korea identified all 24 hospitals affected by the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Sunday, saying it wanted to ensure the public’s safety with transparent information.
Acting Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan disclosed the names of the hospitals at a press conference. The government had earlier identified Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital, in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where the first MERS case was confirmed, and Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of whose doctors has been diagnosed with MERS and apparently contacted over 1,500 people.
The full list included five more hospitals in Pyeongtaek and five more in the nation’s capital.
“We’re disclosing the hospitals where patients have been diagnosed with MERS, so that we can ensure the people’s safety,” Choi said. “MERS has been spreading across these hospitals, and it forces us to impose strict control on them. Hospitals with confirmed MERS cases in the future will be identified as well.”
The government had been under fire for its refusal to share the names of affected hospitals. It’d reasoned that it didn’t want to generate unnecessary fear, though critics said the government had been doing just that by withholding the information. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I am assuming the Korean government was slow to give out this information for fear of causing overcrowding at other hospitals by people avoiding these hospitals. Regardless until the MERS is under control it may be a good thing that the public avoids these hospitals.
South Korean authorities have identified the man who first brought MERS to Korea after traveling to the Middle East:
The World Health Organization warned that the MERS outbreak in South Korea is likely to grow, as the number of people under quarantine crept up to 1,369 on Wednesday.
The Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed five new cases — increasing the number of people with the disease to 35. These new cases were contracted within hospitals.
So far, three people have died after contracting the respiratory virus in South Korea, the country’s Health Ministry said Thursday, in the largest MERS outbreak outside Saudi Arabia.
The first case, concerning a man who returned to South Korea after traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain, was reported on May 20. The person had not been ill during his travels, according to the World Health Organization.
More than 900 schools have shut to prevent the spread of the virus, according to South Korea’s education ministry. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but the Park Guen-hye government is taking a lot of criticism for not reacting better to the initial outbreak. I don’t see how the government is to blame for a lack of a hospital not taking the first case seriously from the start. It seems that once the virus spread the government formed a task force to begin to take measures to stop the spread, but the initial poor handling from the hospital is what is really to blame. However that is the way it goes in Korea where the President tends to get blamed for everything that goes wrong. It will be interesting to see if the Korean left tries to capitalize on this politically?
Also of interest is that South Korea has closed over 900 schools while us military schools remain open. It will be interesting to see how long the US military schools remain open if there is any more spread of the virus on Osan AB for example.
It is pretty bad that a healthcare provider would violate a quarantine and put this many people at risk of contracting the MERS virus:
A medical doctor in Seoul came into contact with over 1,000 citizens while infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the city government said Thursday, sparking concerns of the further spread of the deadly virus.
The doctor, who works for a large general hospital in the capital city, attended large-scale events on the weekend, even after he was ordered into quarantine last week for showing suspected symptoms, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
“On Saturday, the doctor attended the union meeting for the reconstruction of an apartment complex in Gaepo-dong, Seoul, which was attended by a total of 1,565 local people,” Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said in an emergency briefing.
“He also attended two meetings of medical societies he is affiliated with on Saturday and Sunday, and visited several other public places,” he added.
On Monday, he was confirmed as testing positive for MERS and sent to a public facility for MERS patients. He contracted the virus after coming into contact with the country’s 14th MERS patient at the hospital where he works, according to the city officials.
Criticizing the central government for not sharing the relevant information with the municipal government and not doing enough to contain the virus, the mayor vowed “to devise the city’s own countermeasures to protect citizens.” [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the MERS virus has now killed 3 people in Korea and continues to spread. I don’t know how the Korean medical community works, but it seems to me this should be something that should be grounds for removing his medical license.
