Samsung hospital at centre of South Korea's MERS partially closed

[tetano]

SEOUL A South Korean hospital suspended most services on Sunday after being identified as the epicentre of the spread of a deadly respiratory disease that has killed 14 people since being diagnosed in the country nearly four weeks ago.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called an emergency meeting for Tuesday on South Korea's "large and complex" outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the biggest outside Saudi Arabia, where it was first identified in humans in 2012.

MERS was diagnosed in South Korea on May 20 in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East and has spread through hospitals.

It has stirred fears of a repeat of a 2002-2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which began in China and killed about 800 people globally.

South Korea's Ministry of Health reported seven new cases on Sunday, taking the total to 145. The 14 people who died were all elderly or people with existing ailments.

The Samsung Medical Center, a prominent hospital in the capital, said it was suspending all non-emergency surgery and would take no new patients to focus on stopping MERS after more than 70 cases were traced to it.


Its tally has surpassed the number at a hospital in Pyeongtaek, where the first patient stayed.

Among the cases at the Samsung Medical Center was an emergency ward orderly who worked for days after developing symptoms, coming into contact with more than 200 people, the hospital said.

http://www.firstpost.com/world/hosp...nds-services-7-new-cases-reuters-2294934.html

 

[Pathfinder]

South Korea hospital 'is source of many Mers cases'

6 hours ago
From the section Asia

A hospital has suspended most of its services after being identified as the source of almost half the cases in the South Korean outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).

The president of the Samsung Medical Center in the capital Seoul issued a public apology on Sunday.
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More than 70 cases have been traced back to the hospital, authorities say.

Among them was an emergency ward orderly who worked for days after developing symptoms and came into contact with more than 200 people, officials said.

It is believed the orderly picked up the virus from an infected person who waited for days in various parts of the emergency ward, potentially exposing the virus to an estimated 900 staff, patients and visitors.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33125659

 

[Pathfinder]

The Korea Herald > National > Social affairs

MERS-hit top hospital partially closed

Published : 2015-06-14 20:52
Updated : 2015-06-14 20:52
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The hospital?s move to temporarily close came after the authorities confirmed that an emergency worker who transferred patients to the hospital was infected with MERS. The 55-year-old was suspected of having been infected by the 14th patient, who is considered the ?super spreader? for spreading the virus to more than 70 people.

Health authorities also found that the ambulance worker came into contact with over 400 people in nine days, despite having some symptoms, and immediately isolated 160 people who came in close contact with him. Others are being tracked, the officials said. They said the worker was also found to have worn a mask only and did not wear protective gloves while transferring the patients.

Although he had come into contact with the 14th patient, he was not put on the monitoring list, the authorities added, saying that the watch list was limited to those working inside the emergency room.

Meanwhile, another doctor at Samsung Medical Center was confirmed infected, after being exposed to the 14th patient late last month. He became the second medical professional of the hospital to be infected with the virus after the 35th patient.

Despite the exposure to the ?super spreader,? the new infected doctor was not isolated and continued his work at the hospital, the ministry said.

The doctor has been isolated since Wednesday, when he showed a fever. The ministry is attempting to track those who were exposed by the doctor.
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http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150614000362

 

[Pathfinder]

Samsung forced to partially close

Ground zero for MERS infections struggles to clean up its act

June 15,2015
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Song said the hospital decided on the suspension after one of its emergency ward transfer agents tested positive for MERS on Friday and became Patient No. 137. It was also revealed that he worked over a nine-day period from June 2 and June 10 during which he showed signs of infection, a fever, raising further questions about Samsung?s management of its workers and infection controls. The 55-year-old worker contracted the virus from contact with Patient No. 14 from May 27 and 29.

An emergency ward transfer worker?s job is to transfer patients from the emergency ward to a regular hospital room.

?I bow my head deeply in apology for concerns we have caused to the people regarding Patient No. 137, an emergency ward transfer agent, and over the fact that Samsung Medical Center has become the center of MERS infection,? said Song.

He added the hospital placed 37 people believed to have come in direct contact with No. 137 in isolation Friday. Another group of 127 who may have come in contact with No. 137 have also been under quarantine and monitoring, the director said.

The news that Samsung?s emergency ward worker had continued working until Wednesday and had not even been on a list of potential patients drafted by the hospital showed Samsung was neglecting the most likely people to catch the disease: medical workers. It was an accusation Song accepted during the Sunday briefing.
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Nineteen new confirmed cases of MERS were reported over the weekend, including a Samsung Medical Center doctor who tested positive on Saturday, three days after entering in-house isolation, becoming Patient No. 138. The 37-year-old doctor treated patients after exposure to Patient No. 14, the super-spreader, on May 27.

The authorities have yet to fully realize whom the infected doctor had been in contact with until his diagnosis Saturday. The doctor started showing symptoms Wednesday, two weeks after contact with Patient No. 14 at Samsung?s emergency ward. He was put in quarantine the same day, according to the government.
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One MERS patient died Sunday, raising the total death toll to 15, a 10.3 percent fatality rate out of 145 confirmed cases. The victim, Patient No. 81, was Busan?s first MERS case, a 62-year-old man who contracted the virus from Patient No. 14 during a visit to a relative at Samsung Medical Center?s emergency ward on May 27. Patient No. 81 was under intensive care at Busan Medical Center from Tuesday but died of pneumonia caused by MERS. Patient No. 81 was said to have no pre-existing illnesses before his infection with MERS, raising fears because many of the previous fatalities had severe underlying illnesses.

On Saturday, a fourth-generation transmission of the disease was reported after an ambulance driver, 70, was diagnosed with MERS a day before.

The Health and Welfare Ministry said the man acquired the virus from Patient No. 76 during a transfer to a hospital on June 5 and 6. Patient No. 76, one of the 15 casualties who died on June 10, contracted the virus from super-spreader Patient No. 14. That sequence of transmissions would make the ambulance driver, Patient No. 133, the first fourth-generation transmission patient. But last week three other patients were initially described as fourth-generation before authorities changed their minds and said they were third-generation transmissions.

BY KANG JIN-KYU [kang.jinkyu@joongang.co.kr]

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