HEALTH-MERS/SOUTH KOREA-SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Arabian experts hold a meeting on MERS in South Korea

Record ID: 150955

  • Title: HEALTH-MERS/SOUTH KOREA-SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Arabian experts hold a meeting on MERS in South Korea
  • Date: 12th June 2015
  • Summary: CHEONGJU, SOUTH KOREA (JUNE 12, 2015) (REUTERS) ALBARRAK SPEAKING, SAUDI ARABIAN DELEGATION LISTENING SOUTH KOREAN DEPUTY MINISTER OF OFFICE FOR PLANNING AND COORDINATION AT MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND WELFARE, CHOI YOUNG-HYUN, SPEAKING, SOUTH KOREAN OFFICIALS LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) SOUTH KOREAN DEPUTY MINISTER OF OFFICE FOR PLANNING AND COORDINATION AT MINISTRY OF HEAL
  • Embargoed: 27th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5F1C0SEBJN1FAX8HYEIVXA38A
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Experts from Saudi Arabia held a meeting with South Korean officials on Friday (June 12) about Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea.
    The experts, led by Dr. Ali AlBarrak, Head of Infectious Diseases at Military Hospital in Saudi Arabia, arrived in South Korea on Thursday (June 11) to share information of MERS, South Korean health ministry said.
    More than a thousand of people were infected and about four hundred people died of MERS in Saudi Arabia, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
    During the meeting, Saudi Arabian experts were expected to hand down their experience of dealing with MERS, South Korean health ministry added.
    "In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia we have faced this disease for last three years. And last year, it was a big outbreak that happened in between cities. And with good efforts that was done on infection control and also on case detection things have improved. And with this year we had much less cases," Dr. Ali AlBarrak, Head of Infectious Diseases at Military Hospital in Saudi Arabia said at the meeting.
    A South Korean health ministry official were thankful for the information shared by Saudi Arabia.
    "Thank you for visiting to share experiences and information on MERS in Saudi Arabia," South Korean Deputy Minister of Office for Planning and Coordination at Ministry of Health and Welfare, Choi Young-hyun, said.
    South Korea's Health Ministry reported on Friday four new cases of MERS bringing the total to 126 and killed 11 since it was first diagnosed just over three weeks ago in a businessman who had returned from a trip to the Middle East.
    The outbreak is the largest outside Saudi Arabia, where the disease was first identified in humans in 2012, and has stirred fears in Asia of a repeat of a 2002-03 scare when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed about 800 people worldwide.
    South Korea's new cases bring the total number of MERS cases globally to 1,271 based on the World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least 448 related deaths.
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