The terrifying track of how one 'super-spreader' was responsible for nearly half of MERS cases in South Korea
From the-journal.com
The outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the huge megalopolis of Seoul from May to July last year was among the most chilling examples of how fast infectious diseases can spread in our modern world.
From a single businessman who acquired the virus abroad, the disease jumped rapidly from person to person until 36 were dead, 186 infected and thousands were quarantined -- leaving huge swaths of the South Korean capital region, where 25 million people live, paralyzed with fear.
Schools closed, department store sales tanked, and tourist visas were canceled. The economic toll was so severe that the country's central bank had to cut interest rates.
Now, doctors involved in the care of the first patients have gone back and documented in exacting detail the geography of MERS as it spread in one hospital. In a paper published Friday in the journal the Lancet, Sun Young Cho and colleagues reconstructed the transmission of the virus through a series of maps, tables and diagrams that would have made Michael Crichton shudder.
First identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012, MERS has since made its way around the world and infected people in 27 countries. The illness is severe, with patients developing fever, cough and respiratory distress. The death rate is believed to be more than 30 percent.
One of the most revealing details in the analysis is its finding that the traveler, dubbed Patient 1, wasn't the "super-spreader" as previously thought. Patient 1, who was 68, transmitted the virus to another man early in his illness and before he knew he had MERS. It was this other man, 35-year-old Patient 14, who exposed so many others.
Both men first were seen at Pyeongtaek St. Mary's Hospital, a regional facility that had opened months earlier, for what appeared at the time to be pneumonia. They were treated on the same floor, according to health investigators. Both recovered enough to be released.
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