South Korea advised to ban MERS suspects from travelling

Seoul, June 13: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday advised South Korea to ban all people suspected of being infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) from travelling overseas.

The announcement was made by WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Security, Keiji Fukuda after ending a five-day epidemiological study of the MERS spread in South Korea, Xinhua news agency reported.

The country's MERS infections increased to 138 on Saturday as 12 more cases were detected.

One more death was reported, bringing the total toll to 14 and the fatality rate to 10.1 percent.

The 16-member joint mission comprising experts from the WHO and South Korea, staged the joint study of confirmed cases and infection control from Tuesday.

Fukuda urged South Korea to completely figure out who had contact with the MERS infectees, to quarantine and monitor all the potential carriers of the corona virus, and to completely carry out infection prevention and control in all medical facilities.

IANS