More Reason For Calm Than Panic In South Korea's Mers Scare

By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press, San Antonio Express-News: World
Thu, 06/04/2015 - 5:36am

The current frenzy in South Korea over MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, brings to mind the other menacing diseases to hit Asia over the last decade — SARS, which killed hundreds, and bird flu. [...] as now, confusion ruled as the media harped on the growing public panic, and health care workers and government officials struggled to understand and contain the diseases, sometimes downplaying the danger, sometimes inadvertently hyping it. When he returned and became sick last month, he visited two hospitals and two outpatient facilities, "creating multiple opportunities for exposure among health care workers and other patients," WHO said. South Korea has airport containment centers for respiratory screenings, and 16 hospitals equipped with bio-containment units for patients and staff, including 600 beds in negative pressure units for isolation and treatment, Locker said. Washing hands, covering coughs and sneezes, not touching your face with unclean hands — this all helps prevent MERS, experts say. Because it isn't airborne and only transmitted through close contact, it's highly unlikely anyone will get the disease in crowded areas, like parks or schools, said Kang Cheol-In, an infectious diseases expert at the Seoul-based Samsung Medical Center. Kim Sung-han, a professor at the Seoul-based Asan Medical Center, said isolating anyone who has had contact with MERS patients, even if they don't show symptoms, is pointless because no studies show the MERS virus can be spread during the incubation period.

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