MERS kills 11th person in South Korea
South Korea has confirmed the 11th death from MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
The total number of cases in the outbreak has grown to 126, according to the World Health Organization.
The latest MERS death in South Korea was a 72-year-old woman who had been in a coma for five days, according to the Yonhap News Agency, the largest in South Korea. The woman had been hospitalized in the hospital that treated the first MERS patient in that country. The four newest patients to be diagnosed with MERS had all visited hospitals with MERS patients.
Fifty-five hospitals have now been affected by the outbreak, according to the WHO.
South Korea has isolated more than 3,680 people because they came in close contact with someone with MERS or visited one of the hospitals treating these patients, Yonhap reported Friday. People with possible MERS exposures are being isolated for two weeks, which is believed to be the incubation period for the virus. More than 1,200 people have been released from isolation after completing this 2-week period without developing symptoms, according to the WHO.
MERS first emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since infected more than 1,200 people. Overall mortality rates are 37%, according to the WHO. In South Korea, fewer than 10% of patients have died. Most of those who have died have been elderly people with compromised immune systems, according to Yonhap.
Scientists in South Korea and China -- where one of the Korean cases was diagnosed after traveling to that country -- have sequenced the genetic codes of the MERS viruses involved in the outbreak. According to the WHO, scientists have not detected any significant mutations in the virus that would make it more dangerous or easily transmitted.
Schools in Seoul, which have been closed all week, are scheduled to reopen Monday, according to Yonhap.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that health-care providers in the U.S. ask patients if they've traveled outside the country.