CRI听力:6th MERS Death Reported in South Korea

A sixth person has died after contracting the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in South Korea, amid a sharp rise in infections.

More than 18-hundered schools have been closed for several days as the government struggles to contain the spread of the virus.

CRI's Poornima Weerasekara reports.

6th MERS Death Reported in South Korea 

On Monday morning, a man in his 80s became the latest victim to die of MERS-related complications in Daejeon, about 140km south of Seoul. He was hospitalized for pneumonia and was being treated alongside another patient suffering from MERS, when he was infected.

This incident raises another red flag, on the way hospitals are handling the outbreak.

All the infections in South Korea have occurred in hospitals with transmission occurring between patients, their families and medical staff.

More than 23 people were confirmed to have contracted the disease just on Sunday.

This is the biggest single-day jump in MERS infections so far.

Seventeen of these 23 new cases were infected at the Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul and this is one of the largest hospitals in the country, highlighting the severity of the problem.

From just four cases two weeks ago, this brings the total number of infections to 87.

Hospitals have been criticized for not doing enough to contain the spread of the disease internally.

But Jeong Eun-Kyeon Director of the national Disease Prevention Center in South Korea says they are taking drastic measures including tracking those placed under quarantine.

"We did cellphone tracking in a couple of cases. For those that we must find, we will request location tracking and receive data. We are actively tracing their locations through cooperation with police or using other methods."

Despite the strict monitoring, local health officials have fine around 10 people who had broken quarantine.

About 2,300 people have been quarantined so far and over 1,800 schools have been closed since Monday.

Yoo Young-deuk, a high school student in Gyeonggi province, the area outside Seoul where the outbreak started says this new containment strategy was essential, although it disrupted his studies just a few months before the national university entrance exam.

"I am really thankful for the school taking preventative measures so that we can feel safe at school. Even though the MERS is a scary disease that has a high fatality rate, I feel relieved due to these preventative measures taken by the school."

The rapid spread of MERS in South Korea has resulted in the biggest outbreak of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, where it was discovered three years ago.

The virus is considered a deadlier but less infectious cousin of the severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, which killed hundreds of people when it appeared in Asia in 2003.

The epidemic is already putting a strain on the South Korean economy, with another possible rate cut expected this week.

A team of experts from the World Health Organization are due to begin work on Tuesday to evaluate South Korea's response to the outbreak.

For CRI I'm Poornima Weerasekara.