| Telegraph.co.uk | - |
In
a bar in Seoul's upmarket Gangnam district this week, music was
blasting from the speakers and Harry Potter played on a giant
flat-screen television; but the electronic darts board and kung fu video
game stands were bereft of customers, and all but one of ...
Friday 12 June 2015
Seoul a ghost town as South Korea grapples with Mers fear
Health officials are urging people to go about their normal daily activities, saying the rate of new cases is slowing, but in South Korea’s capital the fear is still palpable
|
|
|
|
|
|
Health officials fumigate a theater in Seoul Photo: AFP
In a bar in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam
district this week, music was blasting from the speakers and Harry
Potter played on a giant flat-screen television; but the electronic
darts board and kung fu video game stands were bereft of customers, and
all but one of the tables were empty.
The barman had a simple answer for the unusual lack of business: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).
South Korea on Friday reported three more deaths from Mers, in what has
become the largest outbreak of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, with
more than a dozen deaths in the past few weeks and 126 people in South
Korea diagnosed.
Health officials
have begun urging people to go about their normal daily activities,
saying the rate of new cases was slowing, but in South Korea’s capital, the fear is still palpable.
“The number of newly confirmed cases has fallen sharply and there are
little risks of the virus spreading through airborne transmissions or to
communities outside hospital settings”, the health ministry said in a
statement. “Therefore, we ask the people to conquer their fear and
engage in day-to-day business.”
• Joke wedding photo becomes a symbol of South Korea Mers scare
• Mers virus: everything you need to know
Currently, 3,680 people are under quarantine, down from 3,805. A total of 1,249 people have been released from quarantine, including 294 on Friday.
Nevertheless, all manner of public and private events – from briefings on the forthcoming World Military Games 2015 to a Japan-Korea goodwill noodle banquet – have been cancelled, while 2,400 schools remain closed.
Businesses including shopping malls, restaurants and cinemas have reported a sharp drop in sales as people shun public venues with large crowds.
In Seoul’s Insadong, a pedestrianised arts-and-craft area which is usually heaving with tourists, the streets are suddenly easy to navigate.
“Customers are down by 70 per cent, everyone’s staying home,” says a staffer at the “Dragon’s Beard” traditional confectioner. He grimaces: “I am very sad.”
More than 54,000 foreign travellers have also cancelled planned trips to South Korea so far this month, according to the Korea Tourism Board.
The industrial-port city of Pyeongtaek, southwest of Seoul, where the first cases originated, has been described as “a ghost town”. The 105-resident rural village of Janduk has been quarantined off with police barricades.
Every transmission has been traced to hospitals, where patients presenting with flu-like symptoms went for treatment.
The first case in late May, a man who contracted Mers in the Middle East, visited St Mary’s in Pyeongtaek from where it spread to 29 hospitals nationwide, including the flagship Samsung Medical Centre in Gangnam.
“There is hospital transmission but no airborne transmission of the virus, so the current chaos is caused by psychological anxiety,” Dr Choi Jun-yong of Seoul’s Severence Hospital said. “I advise people to continue their normal lives.”
President Park Geun-hye, who has postponed a planned summit next week with US President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, has also appealed for calm.
end quote from:
• Mers virus: everything you need to know
Currently, 3,680 people are under quarantine, down from 3,805. A total of 1,249 people have been released from quarantine, including 294 on Friday.
Nevertheless, all manner of public and private events – from briefings on the forthcoming World Military Games 2015 to a Japan-Korea goodwill noodle banquet – have been cancelled, while 2,400 schools remain closed.
Businesses including shopping malls, restaurants and cinemas have reported a sharp drop in sales as people shun public venues with large crowds.
In Seoul’s Insadong, a pedestrianised arts-and-craft area which is usually heaving with tourists, the streets are suddenly easy to navigate.
“Customers are down by 70 per cent, everyone’s staying home,” says a staffer at the “Dragon’s Beard” traditional confectioner. He grimaces: “I am very sad.”
More than 54,000 foreign travellers have also cancelled planned trips to South Korea so far this month, according to the Korea Tourism Board.
The industrial-port city of Pyeongtaek, southwest of Seoul, where the first cases originated, has been described as “a ghost town”. The 105-resident rural village of Janduk has been quarantined off with police barricades.
Every transmission has been traced to hospitals, where patients presenting with flu-like symptoms went for treatment.
The first case in late May, a man who contracted Mers in the Middle East, visited St Mary’s in Pyeongtaek from where it spread to 29 hospitals nationwide, including the flagship Samsung Medical Centre in Gangnam.
“There is hospital transmission but no airborne transmission of the virus, so the current chaos is caused by psychological anxiety,” Dr Choi Jun-yong of Seoul’s Severence Hospital said. “I advise people to continue their normal lives.”
President Park Geun-hye, who has postponed a planned summit next week with US President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, has also appealed for calm.
end quote from:
Seoul a ghost town as South Korea grapples with Mers fear
Worst of MERS outbreak may be over in South Korea | Reuters
Saturday, June 13, 2015| Latest E-book
Worst of MERS outbreak may be over in South Korea | Reuters
Jun 12, 2015 15:55 IST
SEOUL The MERS outbreak that has spread through health facilities in South Korea may have peaked, although two hospitals that treated people with the deadly respiratory disease have been sealed off, officials said.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome has infected 126 people in South Korea and killed 13 since it was first diagnosed just over three weeks ago in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East. Just four new cases were reported on Friday.
The Health Ministry announced two more deaths in elderly patients who had been suffering respiratory ailments before they tested positive for the virus.
The outbreak is the largest outside Saudi Arabia, where the disease was first identified in humans in 2012, and has stirred fears in Asia of a repeat of a 2002-2003 scare when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed about 800 people worldwide.
The 68-year-old man who brought MERS back to South Korea visited several health centres for a cough and fever before he was diagnosed, leaving a trail of infection in his wake.
The two sealed-off hospitals, with at least 133 patients and staff, would be closed for at least the next 11 days, given the incubation period of the virus, officials said.
"No patients can get out of their rooms," said a city government official in the capital, Seoul, where one of the hospitals is located, declining to be identified.
"Nurses in protective gear are giving them food. No one can get in from outside."
All but one of South Korea's cases have been confirmed as originating with the businessman, who was diagnosed with MERS on May 20, and occurring in health centres, and the last one is likely to be confirmed as such too, the health ministry said.
WORST OVER?
MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as easily, at least for now. There is no cure or vaccine.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts are in South Korea working with the government and Saudi Arabian health officials are meeting authorities on Friday.
The four new cases reported on Friday marked the lowest daily increase in 11 days, raising hope the worst might be over.
"The signs are beginning to look promising," Columbia University Medical Center professor of epidemiology, Stephen Morse, told Reuters from New York. "I’m hopeful it’s beginning to decline, but there are still patients."
The number of people in quarantine, either at home or in medical facilities, also declined for the first time, by 125 to 3,680, the ministry said.
The incubation period for many people exposed to infected patients is ending, which should mean a decline in new cases, said Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital infectious disease expert, Jacob Lee, in Seoul.
"There may be a third wave from hospitals that MERS patients had stayed at but it won't spread as much as it has," Lee said.
Alarm has spread in the region even though only one case has been reported outside South Korea in this outbreak, that of a South Korean man who travelled to China via Hong Kong despite authorities suggesting he stay in voluntary quarantine at home.
The central bank cut interest rates on Thursday in the hope of softening the blow to an economy already beset by slack demand and plunging visitor arrivals.
U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned President Park Geun-hye, who has postponed a visit to Washington to manage the outbreak, to say he was prepared to lend all support to help fight the disease, her office said.
South Korea's new cases bring the number of cases globally to 1,275, based on WHO data, with at least 452 related deaths.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
end quote from:
Worst of MERS outbreak may be over in South Korea | Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment