S’Korea sets up MERS clinics countrywide

The Punch - Nigeria

South Korea has announced it will set up designated clinics in all major cities to treat Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, as President Park Geun-hye postponed a planned trip to the US amid growing public alarm over the outbreak.

As the death toll rose to nine and the number of confirmed cases of MERS rose to 103 on Wednesday, Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul, said a deputy prime minister told people with MERS symptoms to not present themselves at hospital.

Instead, they were told to contact authorities.

Aljazeera’s correspondent said the outbreak had spread “very much from hospital to hospital”, with 47 of the 103 cases now confirmed to have been contracted at Seoul’s Samsung Medical Center.