SEOUL: Experts from the World Health Organization and South Korea have downplayed concerns about the MERS virus spreading further within the country, but they say it’s premature to declare the outbreak over.
WHO official Keiji Fukuda said on Saturday that the outbreak has so far been contained to hospitals and there’s no evidence to suggest that the virus is spreading in the community.
He says overcrowded emergency rooms and patients’ wards in South Korean hospitals might have contributed to a wider-than-expected transmission of the virus that usually spreads poorly between people.
Fourteen people have died and nearly 140 have been diagnosed including 12 new infections Saturday with Middle East respiratory syndrome since last month in the largest outbreak outside Saudi Arabia.
