MERS outbreak in S. Korea! 9 dead, 108 cases, 2892 under quarantine!

[jimmy olsen]

Help!

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/01/world/south-korea-mers/

2 MERS patients die in South Korea


By Ashley Fantz, K.J. Kwon and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN


Updated 0054 GMT (0754 HKT) June 2, 2015
(CNN)—Two MERS patients have died in South Korea, marking the first deaths from an outbreak of the dreaded respiratory virus in the country, officials said.

The victims included a 58-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man who both had contact with the country's first MERS patient, South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare said.

So far, there have been 25 confirmed cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome in South Korea, including the two dead patients.

Officials are recommending the government temporarily ban people exposed to MERS from leaving the country to prevent the virus from spreading, said Kwon Jun-wook, a Health Ministry official.

During a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said there had been "some insufficiency" in her country's initial response to the virus and called for an "all-out" response to halt the spread of the disease.

Scientists studying how virus spreads

Scientists are still trying to discern how the virus is contracted. It can cause fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some people also have had gastrointestinal symptoms including diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, while people with severe complications from the virus suffered pneumonia and kidney failure.

For many people with MERS, more severe complications followed, such as pneumonia and kidney failure. About three to four out of every 10 people reported with MERS have died. Most of the people who died had an underlying medical condition, according to the CDC. Some infected people had only mild symptoms (such as cold-like symptoms) or no symptoms at all.

A paper published in July 2014 in the journal mBio said it might be airborne.

At the time, there was what the World Health Organization deemed a particularly alarming outbreak, in Saudi Arabia and the United States, CNN reported. The first cases were documented in spring 2012 and were linked to camels.

The researchers detected fragments of the virus in the air at a barn where four of nine camels were infected. They called for additional measures to prevent possible camel to human transmission, but also emphasized that more research was needed.

According to a May WHO report, between the 18th and 23rd of the month, the National Health Regulations arm of WHO received reports of four new cases of MERS in Saudi Arabia, including one death.

As of May 25,WHO had received 1,139 laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS globally, including at least 431 related deaths.


Most South Korea cases tied to first patient


In South Korea, officials reported that at least 19 of the 25 MERS patients in the country had been in medical facilities and were in direct contact with the first patient to be diagnosed with the virus.

Among those sick, five are in unstable condition, with one in critical. The first patient developed symptoms on May 11 and suffered from pneumonia and respiratory difficulty, but is in stable condition. That means, according to officials, that person's odds of surviving are greater.

At least 682 people are quarantined in their homes or at medical facilities, Kwon said.

Fear about the virus is gripping many in South Korea. There are no vaccines, no cures and the fatality rate for the illness is high.

[Monoriu]

We had a SARS outbreak in 2003.  300 died.  It is not a big deal, don't worry.  In fact it helped deepen deflation, so there is a positive side.

[HisMajestyBOB]

OMG Tim, run for the border! It's the only way to be safe and escape the inevitable zombie hordes!

[Caliga]

Monstrous.

[Ed Anger]

Tim checked on his emergency rickshaw, but discovered the driver dead.

[Eddie Teach]

Time to buy boat tickets to Madagascar.

[Fate]

If you live in a first world country, then this virus is a hell of a lot more scary than Ebola.

MERS is the kind of virus that could collapse a modern medical system. Few will show up to work at the hospitals given that there's no specific therapy and no way to really protect yourself from being infected by infectious patients.

[jimmy olsen]

If you live in a first world country, then this virus is a hell of a lot more scary than Ebola.

MERS is the kind of virus that could collapse a modern medical system. Few will show up to work at the hospitals given that there's no specific therapy and no way to really protect yourself from being infected by infectious patients.

Doctors and nurses showed up to treat the Spanish Flu, why wouldn't they do so here?

[Fate]

If you live in a first world country, then this virus is a hell of a lot more scary than Ebola.

MERS is the kind of virus that could collapse a modern medical system. Few will show up to work at the hospitals given that there's no specific therapy and no way to really protect yourself from being infected by infectious patients.

Doctors and nurses showed up to treat the Spanish Flu, why wouldn't they do so here?

Self-preservation. You're looking at a 2.5% case fatality rate in the Spanish flu versus 20% for MERS (likely higher in a large outbreak scenario.) It's also a lot easier to protect yourself from influenza than it is to protect yourself from MERS or other airborne viruses. I can totally see the nurses unions on strike once 2 out of every 10 of them drop dead while doing their jobs.

[Ed Anger]

Goodbye supply chain.

[jimmy olsen]

If you live in a first world country, then this virus is a hell of a lot more scary than Ebola.

MERS is the kind of virus that could collapse a modern medical system. Few will show up to work at the hospitals given that there's no specific therapy and no way to really protect yourself from being infected by infectious patients.

Doctors and nurses showed up to treat the Spanish Flu, why wouldn't they do so here?

Self-preservation. You're looking at a 2.5% case fatality rate in the Spanish flu versus 20% for MERS (likely higher in a large outbreak scenario.) It's also a lot easier to protect yourself from influenza than it is to protect yourself from MERS or other airborne viruses. I can totally see the nurses unions on strike once 2 out of every 10 of them drop dead while doing their jobs.

Isn't influenza airborne?

[jimmy olsen]

More incompetence from the government, this scandal is exploding over here.

S. Korea reports 5 additional cases of MERS

2015/06/03 08:10

SEJONG, June 3 (Yonhap) -- South Korea confirmed five additional cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) Wednesday, bringing the total number of people diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease here to 30.

Four of the five people newly diagnosed with MERS are believed to have been infected after coming in close contact with the country's first-ever patient, who allegedly caught the disease while traveling to the Middle East in mid-April, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The ministry said the four new patients came in contact with the first patient at an undisclosed hospital in mid-May.

The country also confirmed an additional case of tertiary infection in a 60-year-old male who had shared the same hospital room with one of the patients diagnosed earlier.

The case marked the third of its kind in South Korea and reportedly in the world.

The health ministry earlier said no tertiary transmission of MERS had been reported throughout the world, a reason it had long insisted on isolating only the people who had come in close contact with the first patient.

Shortly before the country confirmed two cases of tertiary transmission Tuesday, the government changed its stance, largely as a precautionary measure, and began isolating those who have come in close contact with anyone diagnosed.

The number of people in isolation is soon expected to reach over 750 while ministry officials say the number may quickly explode.

"We are now identifying people newly subject to isolation in relation to the latest confirmed cases. Once the process is completed, the number of people in isolation may have multiplied by a significant number," an official said earlier while speaking on condition of anonymity.

Out of the 30 people diagnosed here so far, two have died of MERS, though both of them were diagnosed posthumously.

Globally, however, more than four out of every 10 people diagnosed with MERS have died since the disease was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MERS is a viral respiratory illness that is fairly new to humans with only some 1,100 confirmed cases reported throughout the world since the first case in 2012.

There currently is no vaccine or treatment for the disease.

[Fate]

If you live in a first world country, then this virus is a hell of a lot more scary than Ebola.

MERS is the kind of virus that could collapse a modern medical system. Few will show up to work at the hospitals given that there's no specific therapy and no way to really protect yourself from being infected by infectious patients.

Doctors and nurses showed up to treat the Spanish Flu, why wouldn't they do so here?

Self-preservation. You're looking at a 2.5% case fatality rate in the Spanish flu versus 20% for MERS (likely higher in a large outbreak scenario.) It's also a lot easier to protect yourself from influenza than it is to protect yourself from MERS or other airborne viruses. I can totally see the nurses unions on strike once 2 out of every 10 of them drop dead while doing their jobs.

Isn't influenza airborne?

The definition of airborne in an infectious disease sense is confusing, even to the medically literate.

Influenza is spread by large respiratory droplets that are too heavy to travel very far from the source, therefore it's not considered airborne.

Measles, chicken pox, tuberculosis, and viruses like SARS/MERS are spread by tiny respiratory droplets that can suspend in the air for hours and remain able to infect new hosts.

[jimmy olsen]

School canceled Thursday and Friday over MERS fears!

EDIT: Correction, classes canceled. Teachers still have to go.

[Caliga]

What will you be doing if there are no students?