ALARM is mounting in South Korea over Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). On June 5th Park Won-Soon, the mayor of Seoul, declared “war” as authorities reported a fourth death from the mysterious disease. Including the four who have died, 41 people have caught the illness, and more than 1,600 are under quarantine. The news that a doctor with MERS may have infected over a thousand people in the capital sparked fears of an even wider outbreak.
The virus behind MERS is poorly understood, but seems to be closely related to the one that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed around 800 people between 2001-2002. Like SARS, it is a zoonotic infection; one, in other words, that has jumped to humans from other species. It is thought initially to have come from contact with camels in Saudi Arabia. About 36% of sufferers die from the disease, a higher rate than SARS, and there is no cure or vaccine. In the Middle East MERS has killed nearly 500 people.
That fearsome reputation is fuelling something of a blame game In South Korea. The central government is under fire for withholding information. It should have informed the public about the infected doctor’s movements, said Mr Park. The health minister, Moon Hyong-Pyo, retorted that the mayor’s criticism risked encouraging widespread “mistrust and misunderstanding”. The government has also been criticised for not revealing the names and locations of the hospitals treating MERS patients. One reason it reportedly gave was that the establishments involved could suffer commercial losses.
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