Taiwan

Doctor to head to S. Korea to study MERS-CoV: CDC

CNA
May 28, 2015, 12:20 am TWN

TAIPEI — Taiwan will send a doctor to South Korea Thursday to learn about the development of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) there after it reported a fifth case, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Wednesday.

CDC Director-General Steve Hsu-sung Kuo said the doctor will learn first hand about the status of the virus and measures taken at airports there to counter the virus’ spread, while also providing health information to Taiwanese nationals in the country.

Despite the announcement of a fifth MERS-CoV case in South Korea confirmed on Tuesday, another CDC official said Taiwan has not issued a travel alert for the country because the latest case was not a community infection case.

CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw said the fifth case was a 50-year-old doctor who treated the first MERS-CoV patient on May 17.

“The doctor has long been included in the monitoring group and exercised self-isolation,” Chou said, explaining that it was not a new community infection case, an indication that the virus was not spreading in South Korea.

Chou said the first patient, a 68-year-old man who had recently made a business trip to Bahrain, sought medical treatment in four hospitals, and that as of Wednesday only the one doctor had been infected.

MERS-CoV was first identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. As of May 23, the World Health Organization had been notified of 1,139 confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including at least 431 related deaths.

Reference: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2015/05/28/437046/Doctor-to.htm