CRI听力:Number of MERS Cases Rises to 35 in S Korea, 3 Confirmed Dead

South Korean officials say an additional 5 cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome have been confirmed in the country.

"Up to now, there are total 35 confirmed cases of MERS and 1,667 people have been quarantined."

Kwon Jun-wook with the South Korean Health Ministry says the new cases include two more health care workers who had been treating infected patients.

"Newly confirmed cases are health care worker and visitors who had contacted with first confirmed patient at same ward. Other two patients are cases of infection in other hospitals."

Health authorities say the latest cases are believed to have been passed-on before the existing patients were confirmed to be MERS-positive.

This brings the total number of health care workers infected with the virus in South Korea up to 5.

So far three people have died from the virus in South Korea.

The outbreak of the virus has prompted authorities to shut down some 500 schools across the country as a precaution.

MERS found its way into South Korea after an elderly man returned to the country on a trip to the Middle East.

The virus itself was first identified in humans in 2012 in Saudi Arabia, infecting around 12-hundred people in total.

It's a corona virus similar to SARS.

MERS has a mortality rate of around 40-percent.