South Korea reports fifth MERS death as the number of cases climbs

June 2015 – SOUTH KOREA – South Korea said Sunday that 14 more people have been infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome and that a fifth person had died. A total of 64 people have been confirmed as having MERS since a South Korean man infected with the virus returned from the Middle East in May. The outbreak is the largest ever outside the Middle East, where most infections have occurred since the virus was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The latest fatality was a 75-year-old man who was found to have had MERS after dying, the Health Ministry said.
MERS is a respiratory disease from the same family of viruses as the common cold and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. There is no vaccine or medical treatment for the virus, which has a death rate of around 27%, according to the World Health Organization. However, in the first case of a possible recovery from the virus in the latest outbreak, one person diagnosed with MERS was discharged from a hospital Friday after her body temperature returned to normal and test results came back negative, the government said.

This post was published at The Extinction Protocol on June 7, 2015.